GDT: Game #5: Blues (2-1-1) vs Jets (2-3-0)

[sbet1998]

We're never going to know the career he could've had with what happened to this team after 2020. I'm curious what his numbers would look like if he were playing during the Hitchcock era and nearing retirement now. Instead he's playing on a piss poor team getting shelled every night and is still throwing up good games. Waste of his prime years.

Yeah, its the team that's been holding Binnington back from his HOF career.

 

[ezcreepin]

Yeah, its the team that's been holding Binnington back from his HOF career.

Halak had a .916 and 2.23 gaa, Elliott a .925 and 2.01 gaa, and Allen a .913 and 2.50 gaa with the Blues through the 2010s. Are you telling me Binnington wouldn't have faired as well or better than them if he were on those teams? He's not a HoF goalie, but I think his numbers would've been pretty interesting.

 

[Ranksu]

Wow our offense is bad. If they can’t fix it a bottom five finish is entirely possible.

Well look up our lineup. Itse really bad.

I cant remember when was the last time we had such a bad offense.

 

[AjaxManifesto]

When you go stretches of 10 minutes or so with only one to two shots on net and you are NOT dominating puck possession, like the coach preaches, because you don't have the personnel to do it, you need to change your strategy.

It's gonna be a long winter....

 

[sbet1998]

Halak had a .916 and 2.23 gaa, Elliott a .925 and 2.01 gaa, and Allen a .913 and 2.50 gaa with the Blues through the 2010s. Are you telling me Binnington wouldn't have faired as well or better than them if he were on those teams? He's not a HoF goalie, but I think his numbers would've been pretty interesting.

So we're going to give all the credit to the goaltenders? Those fringe HOF D and Forward groups didnt factor in?

I never claimed JB couldnt sustain some nice numbers in a Hitchcock system -- I bet he very well could. That system was known for making pedestrian goalies look elite.

 

[Thallis]

So we're going to give all the credit to the goaltenders? Those fringe HOF D and Forward groups didnt factor in?

I never claimed JB couldnt sustain some nice numbers in a Hitchcock system -- I bet he very well could. That system was known for making pedestrian goalies look elite.

The point is that Binnington is without doubt a much better goaltender than any of them, so his numbers would likely be pretty crazy if he played the majority of his career behind them.

 

[joe galiba]

Everyone needs to face it. Our offense died the day Perron signed with Detroit.

the day
our offence died
we were singing
bye, bye Miss American Pie
drove my Chevy to the Levee, but the Levee was dry
and them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey in Rye

 

[TheDizee]

havent watched a minute of the past 2 games

looks like another meh performance

oh cool, they got a PP goal huh

cya later

 

[Cotton McKnight]

So many giveaways and missed chances on the odd-man rushes. The odd-man rushes were in the Blues favor, but none were converted.

Enjoyed watching the Jets feed: was getting a headache from the Blues feed on ESPN+.

Goal 3 on Binnington was weak, definitely was thinking of playing the pass.

Kyrou had some good chances, Buch looked pedestrian besides his tip PP goal.

Would like to see a slide in the standings because this team cannot sustain an attitude of competition (might as well get a consolation prize in the draft), it's not their fault (the players), there's no depth of forwards or defense at this point. Less starts for Binnington, develop Hofer some with more games. Be prepared for trade deadline dealings (provided trade partners can even afford our players). We'll have some competition for the bottom with CHI and SJS.

 

[Brian39]

The point is that Binnington is without doubt a much better goaltender than any of them, so his numbers would likely be pretty crazy if he played the majority of his career behind them.

From Binner's first start on 1/7/19 through the end of the 2019/20 season, Binner and Allen had pretty damn similar numbers behind the same team. Binner had a .918 SV% while Allen was at a .925 SV%. Since Allen left, they also have pretty damn similar numbers. Binner has a .902 SV% while Allen has a .901 SV%.

You are going to have a very, very difficult time convincing me that our team defense has been worse than Montreal's over that stretch. Natural Stat Trick has us at 30 fewer expected goals against from 2020/21-2022/23 and my eye test doesn't dispute that. Montreal's defense has been genuinely awful the last couple years.

I think the gap between Binner and Allen when viewing the entirety of their games/careers is much smaller than you believe it to be. Binner has that 'lock it down when he has to' gene that Allen doesn't have, but when talking about the grind of a regular season they each experience pretty low lows that aren't just from the team in front of them. We have seen Binner struggle to handle a heavy workload the same way we saw Allen struggle with it. Binner was great in the first half of 2019/20 (.921 at the New Year) and then struggled the rest of the year (.899 the rest of the year). He ceded games to Allen in the playoffs when he was absolutely the worst Blue on the ice. Binner's struggles and eventual concession of the net to Husso in 2021/22 was very similar to the Allen we got used to.

Binner's best is better than Allen's best and I'd take him over Allen in a must-win game every time.

But regular season numbers are about so much more than your A game and Binner has gone through many lows like Allen did. I don't think he's been as bad as his numbers have suggested, but that certainly doesn't mean he doesn't have blame or faults to his game. I think Binner would struggle with consistency even if the D in front of him were better.

 

[Brian39]

I don't think I've ever seen such a collective 'throw in the towel, this is clearly a bottom 5 team' reaction from fans of a team that has 5 points in 5 games.

I think this team has been far from pretty to watch so far, but we have been allowing fewer high danger chances and expected goals than we did last year. We are doing a noticeably better job of preventing back door tap-ins, and we're actually contesting the blue line.

The offense and special teams haven't shown up at all, but I think 5 games is a bit premature to assume that it never will. Thomas, Schenn, and Kyrou have been streaky players for 2+ years now and Buch has 2 points in what is essentially 2 games played (plus 5 minutes before leaving a game with injury).

It's 5 games with a brand new defensive system for a team that I think we all agree isn't going to be competing for a division. Any season-long proclamations feel entirely premature.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

I don't think I've ever seen such a collective 'throw in the towel, this is clearly a bottom 5 team' reaction from fans of a team that has 5 points in 5 games.

I think this team has been pretty far from pretty so far, but we have been allowing fewer high danger chances and expected goals than we did last year. We are doing a noticeably better job of preventing back door tap-ins, and we're actually contesting the blue line.

The offense and special teams haven't shown up at all, but I think 5 games is a bit premature to assume that it never will. Thomas, Schenn, and Kyrou have been streaky players for 2+ years now and Buch has 2 points in what is essentially 2 games played (plus 5 minutes before leaving a game with injury).

It's 5 games with a brand new defensive system for a team that I think we all agree isn't going to be competing for a division. Any season-long proclamations feel entirely premature.

Nah, we're terrible Brian.

 

[BlueDream]

Nah, we're terrible Brian.

We are.

Binnington is the only reason we’re not 1-4. The team was crappy last year and our roster this year isn’t much different. So I don’t buy that it’s only a 5-game sample, we’ve looked bad for the past ~90 games and not enough has changed to think things will magically turn around soon.

Our PK was historically bad last season and it’s off to a poor start again this year.

Our defensive system I guess is better (couldn’t have been worse) but it has stifled our offense. We’re averaging 23 shots per game which would also be historically bad if we kept that pace. We have been outplayed in every game.

So tell me, what is good about the team? I’d love to know.

 

[AjaxManifesto]

The Land of Misfit Toys comes to mind

 

[Brian39]

The team was crappy last year and our roster this year isn’t much different. So I don’t buy that it’s only a 5-game sample, we’ve looked bad for the past ~90 games and not enough has changed to think things will magically turn around soon.

...and that team last year got 81 points which was directly in between a playoff spot and 5th worst. And the current team is at a (very small sample size) pace of 82 points. So if we're talking about 'well this year isn't much different' we are talking about a team pretty far away from bottom 3 or 5.

So tell me, what is good about the team? I’d love to know.

I'm not arguing that the team appears to be good. I'm arguing that there is a hell of a lot of space between 'bottom 3 or 5' and 'good' and I think it is fairly likely that we exist in that space.

Binner (and Hofer) are part of this team. Barring injuries, they will be all year. Binner obviously won't be .945 this year and he very well may hit a few skids. But I would take our goaltending tandem even assuming an inconsistent Binner over the ones in Chicago, Montreal, San Jose, Columbus, and Seattle with zero hesitation. And I feel pretty comfortable that it will be better than the ones in Philly and Anaheim. I won't be at all surprised if Binner is an average-to-above average starter this year. it is really hard to be bottom 5 with NHL-caliber goaltending.

I think the PP can (and should) be at least average if we don't keep running out the league's dumbest scheme. Maybe we won't make any changes all year while running sub-10%, but I very much doubt that. Our PP has actually looked good whenever we actually put a left hand shot on the right wall (we even scored a goal that way last night!) so I'd assume at some point we will start doing that for more than a few seconds at a time. We have yet to put our best PP weapon on the top PP unit and I expect that to change at some point.

I think Buch is probably not going to average below 15 minutes a night. Schenn might be washed, but I think it is more likely he is feeling some pressure with the C and/or that he is simply going through one of the 2-3 prolonged cold streaks he goes on every year where the puck is a grenade on his stick and he forgets that he has a good shot. I'll be pretty surprised if we don't get a bit more offensive involvement out of Faulk, Parayko, and Krug throughout the year. I expect that Kyrou's 5.9% shooting percentage will increase. I think some of his production dip so far is because he is (successfully) focusing on defense, but some of it has also been lack of finish. Everything about his career so far tells me that he hasn't permanently lost his scoring touch.

Again, I'm not saying that this all adds up to us being a genuinely good team, but I think it is pretty unlikely that we've played our best hockey of the season so far and the large sample size we have is mediocrity and not complete garbage. We would be far from the first team that struggles offensively for a month in a new defensive scheme before getting comfortable and having more offensive success.

From a macro "what I think the team could be" perspective, being better defensively while not generating offense is just much less concerning to me than if we still looked like last year's team defensively.

 

[BlueDream]

...and that team last year got 81 points which was directly in between a playoff spot and 5th worst. And the current team is at a (very small sample size) pace of 82 points. So if we're talking about 'well this year isn't much different' we are talking about a team pretty far away from bottom 3 or 5.


I'm not arguing that the team appears to be good. I'm arguing that there is a hell of a lot of space between 'bottom 3 or 5' and 'good' and I think it is fairly likely that we exist in that space.

Binner (and Hofer) are part of this team. Barring injuries, they will be all year. Binner obviously won't be .945 this year and he very well may hit a few skids. But I would take our goaltending tandem even assuming an inconsistent Binner over the ones in Chicago, Montreal, San Jose, Columbus, and Seattle with zero hesitation. And I feel pretty comfortable that it will be better than the ones in Philly and Anaheim. I won't be at all surprised if Binner is an average-to-above average starter this year. it is really hard to be bottom 5 with NHL-caliber goaltending.

I think the PP can (and should) be at least average if we don't keep running out the league's dumbest scheme. Maybe we won't make any changes all year while running sub-10%, but I very much doubt that. Our PP has actually looked good whenever we actually put a left hand shot on the right wall (we even scored a goal that way last night!) so I'd assume at some point we will start doing that for more than a few seconds at a time. We have yet to put our best PP weapon on the top PP unit and I expect that to change at some point.

I think Buch is probably not going to average below 15 minutes a night. Schenn might be washed, but I think it is more likely he is feeling some pressure with the C and/or that he is simply going through one of the 2-3 prolonged cold streaks he goes on every year where the puck is a grenade on his stick and he forgets that he has a good shot. I'll be pretty surprised if we don't get a bit more offensive involvement out of Faulk, Parayko, and Krug throughout the year. I expect that Kyrou's 5.9% shooting percentage will increase. I think some of his production dip so far is because he is (successfully) focusing on defense, but some of it has also been lack of finish. Everything about his career so far tells me that he hasn't permanently lost his scoring touch.

Again, I'm not saying that this all adds up to us being a genuinely good team, but I think it is pretty unlikely that we've played our best hockey of the season so far and the large sample size we have is mediocrity and not complete garbage. We would be far from the first team that struggles offensively for a month in a new defensive scheme before getting comfortable and having more offensive success.

From a macro "what I think the team could be" perspective, being better defensively while not generating offense is just much less concerning to me than if we still looked like last year's team defensively.

Wouldn’t being awful be better than being mediocre? I don’t want to get 82 points. Being on pace for that just makes things worse. Our underlying numbers are so bad that we should be a worse team and get a better draft pick. But Binnington may prevent that from happening. And all the respect to him, I love his competitiveness. But it is very clear that this is a bad hockey team no matter how you want to slice it between bottom 5 vs bottom 10.

 

[Novacain]

Just wanted to mention this because I’m a masochist and find it funny in a dark comedy way, I’ve been tracking this teams drop in Corsi% for years. Corsi%, for those who don’t know much about advanced stats, is basically “what percentage of shots on net in games you play are your shots compared to the opponents.” It’s usually a good way to track how good your team is, as very few teams that are low on it at the end of the year end up being actually good (our year were we shot the obscene percentage being an exception. Here’s how we looked in the Cup season and since.

18-19: 51.53% (worth noting the percentage was much higher in the second half)
19-20: 50.78%
20-21: 47.78%
21-22: 47.07%
22-23: 45.85%

And, obviously super early but bad enough to point out, through 5 games this season…

23-24: 39.03%

Yikes. I’d be shocked it it stays that bad, though I see little evidence to think it’s not going to stay in the 45% or slightly lower group. We are a worse team this year then last cause our bad group is older. This year could be rough.

 

[Spektre]

Just wanted to mention this because I’m a masochist and find it funny in a dark comedy way, I’ve been tracking this teams drop in Corsi% for years. Corsi%, for those who don’t know much about advanced stats, is basically “what percentage of shots on net in games you play are your shots compared to the opponents.” It’s usually a good way to track how good your team is, as very few teams that are low on it at the end of the year end up being actually good (our year were we shot the obscene percentage being an exception. Here’s how we looked in the Cup season and since.

18-19: 51.53% (worth noting the percentage was much higher in the second half)
19-20: 50.78%
20-21: 47.78%
21-22: 47.07%
22-23: 45.85%

And, obviously super early but bad enough to point out, through 5 games this season…

23-24: 39.03%

Yikes. I’d be shocked it it stays that bad, though I see little evidence to think it’s not going to stay in the 45% or slightly lower group. We are a worse team this year then last cause our bad group is older. This year could be rough.

Are you giving the Corsi for the first 5 games of each season or the entire season?

 

[Novacain]

Are you giving the Corsi for the first 5 games of each season or the entire season?

Would you prefer me to say “through 5 games we are being outshot 11 shots a game and that’s really really bad” for simplicity?

 

[Spektre]

Would you prefer me to say “through 5 games we are being outshot 11 shots a game and that’s really really bad” for simplicity?

lol no I'm simply asking if the numbers you gave are for the first 5 games of each season..

19-20: 50.78%
20-21: 47.78%
21-22: 47.07%
22-23: 45.85%

etc..

 

[Thallis]

...and that team last year got 81 points which was directly in between a playoff spot and 5th worst. And the current team is at a (very small sample size) pace of 82 points. So if we're talking about 'well this year isn't much different' we are talking about a team pretty far away from bottom 3 or 5.


I'm not arguing that the team appears to be good. I'm arguing that there is a hell of a lot of space between 'bottom 3 or 5' and 'good' and I think it is fairly likely that we exist in that space.

Binner (and Hofer) are part of this team. Barring injuries, they will be all year. Binner obviously won't be .945 this year and he very well may hit a few skids. But I would take our goaltending tandem even assuming an inconsistent Binner over the ones in Chicago, Montreal, San Jose, Columbus, and Seattle with zero hesitation. And I feel pretty comfortable that it will be better than the ones in Philly and Anaheim. I won't be at all surprised if Binner is an average-to-above average starter this year. it is really hard to be bottom 5 with NHL-caliber goaltending.

I think the PP can (and should) be at least average if we don't keep running out the league's dumbest scheme. Maybe we won't make any changes all year while running sub-10%, but I very much doubt that. Our PP has actually looked good whenever we actually put a left hand shot on the right wall (we even scored a goal that way last night!) so I'd assume at some point we will start doing that for more than a few seconds at a time. We have yet to put our best PP weapon on the top PP unit and I expect that to change at some point.

I think Buch is probably not going to average below 15 minutes a night. Schenn might be washed, but I think it is more likely he is feeling some pressure with the C and/or that he is simply going through one of the 2-3 prolonged cold streaks he goes on every year where the puck is a grenade on his stick and he forgets that he has a good shot. I'll be pretty surprised if we don't get a bit more offensive involvement out of Faulk, Parayko, and Krug throughout the year. I expect that Kyrou's 5.9% shooting percentage will increase. I think some of his production dip so far is because he is (successfully) focusing on defense, but some of it has also been lack of finish. Everything about his career so far tells me that he hasn't permanently lost his scoring touch.

Again, I'm not saying that this all adds up to us being a genuinely good team, but I think it is pretty unlikely that we've played our best hockey of the season so far and the large sample size we have is mediocrity and not complete garbage. We would be far from the first team that struggles offensively for a month in a new defensive scheme before getting comfortable and having more offensive success.

From a macro "what I think the team could be" perspective, being better defensively while not generating offense is just much less concerning to me than if we still looked like last year's team defensively.

This isn't the same team as last year, it's worse by a considerable margin. ROR, Barbashev, & Tarasenko, even as they played last year, are better than Hayes, Blais, and Kapanen. The defensive scheme is not particularly new; any player in the NHL will have played a box+1 at some point in their careers.

The problem with the offense is the new defensive scheme combined with the personnel. We don't have the horses to consistently win pucks alone down deep in our zone and start a quick transition, so instead we get hemmed in for a minute and have to change lines once we finally get possession. We also don't have the guys who can consistently win the puck off the forecheck and create offense that way. In the past games where we've been getting odd man rushes, they've been mostly the result of blind passes directly to the winger off the wall. This is not a formula for winning hockey, and frankly it's more likely that teams figure out how to exploit our structure or Binnington becoming less dialed in than the offense improving on what we've seen. The fundamentals on this team are poor. We spend more time in our zone at even strength than any team not named the Sharks (who are within striking distance at 45.4% to our 45.0%). We don't consistently generate rush chances. The powerplay is stupid and should improve, but we only have 5 points because of Binnington right now. We are a lot closer to 3-5 worst in the league than good.

 

[BadgersandBlues]

Just wanted to mention this because I’m a masochist and find it funny in a dark comedy way, I’ve been tracking this teams drop in Corsi% for years. Corsi%, for those who don’t know much about advanced stats, is basically “what percentage of shots on net in games you play are your shots compared to the opponents.” It’s usually a good way to track how good your team is, as very few teams that are low on it at the end of the year end up being actually good (our year were we shot the obscene percentage being an exception. Here’s how we looked in the Cup season and since.

18-19: 51.53% (worth noting the percentage was much higher in the second half)
19-20: 50.78%
20-21: 47.78%
21-22: 47.07%
22-23: 45.85%

And, obviously super early but bad enough to point out, through 5 games this season…

23-24: 39.03%

Yikes. I’d be shocked it it stays that bad, though I see little evidence to think it’s not going to stay in the 45% or slightly lower group. We are a worse team this year then last cause our bad group is older. This year could be rough.

Our advanced stats are pretty ugly across the board after 5 games (At least on 5v5).

It's kind of a miracle we're even overall for 5v5 scoring through 5 games with numbers that bad, but here we are.

I think at the end of the day, we can't expect the Vrana, Blais, and Kapanen's of the world to show up and be effective every game. So far through 5 games I think Blais has had two great ones, Vrana has had two great ones, and Kap has had one great one. That's actually not bad all things considered. Our lack of production right now is our second (Schenn) line, second D pair, and our fourth line. Our fourth line has zero goals, but more importantly are getting 100% caved in super hard, and the one goal our second line has was Neighbors when Kapanen had his great game.

Schenn, Faulk, and Krug in a combined 150 minutes 5v5 have......one assist (Secondary) to show for it. Neighbors and Sundqvist's advanced stats are putrid, I think some of the worst in the league. They are giving up tons of shots/chances against and doing nothing on the other side of the ice. For an "identity," line, it's pretty brutal.

 

[Reality Czech]

This isn't the same team as last year, it's worse by a considerable margin. ROR, Barbashev, & Tarasenko, even as they played last year, are better than Hayes, Blais, and Kapanen. The defensive scheme is not particularly new; any player in the NHL will have played a box+1 at some point in their careers.

The problem with the offense is the new defensive scheme combined with the personnel. We don't have the horses to consistently win pucks alone down deep in our zone and start a quick transition, so instead we get hemmed in for a minute and have to change lines once we finally get possession. We also don't have the guys who can consistently win the puck off the forecheck and create offense that way. In the past games where we've been getting odd man rushes, they've been mostly the result of blind passes directly to the winger off the wall. This is not a formula for winning hockey, and frankly it's more likely that teams figure out how to exploit our structure or Binnington becoming less dialed in than the offense improving on what we've seen. The fundamentals on this team are poor. We spend more time in our zone at even strength than any team not named the Sharks (who are within striking distance at 45.4% to our 45.0%). We don't consistently generate rush chances. The powerplay is stupid and should improve, but we only have 5 points because of Binnington right now. We are a lot closer to 3-5 worst in the league than good.

Good points. The reason our offense worked so well before is we had the three guys you mentioned, ROR, Vlad, Barbie and Perron as well who could protect the puck, sustain possession in the O zone and wear down the other team. We certainly don't have the personnel to play that style anymore. Kyrou is a player who doesn't keep the puck on his stick long before trying to make a play and I'd say the same of Thomas to a lesser extent. Buch might have our best forward right now, but he's also more of a playmaker

Not sure what the coaching fix is on offense but our best players have to lead the way. I'm not too worried about Buch, but Thomas and Kyrou need to take a step up and take over games more often. I've liked what I've seen from Kyrou overall but he squanders too many chances and Thomas has just been average with a few really nice plays here and there.

About tonight's game, despite a very underwhelming effort from pretty much everyone except Binner, we had plenty of chances to steal a point at least. If Kyrou had buried one of his two gift breakaways or if Saad had buried his golden opportunity, it could have been a different outcome. We had a pretty solid 1st period and then everything fell apart on one bad shift with Tucker/Scandella on the ice (not that the forwards helped much either).

It's not like the Jets dominated. They gave up a lot of odd man rushes and made their share of mistakes. Hellebuyck owns us and he played great, but we didn't make it hard enough for him. Frustrating loss but a few key moments really decided the game. Hope for a better effort against Calgary and I wouldn't be surprised to see Tucker and/or Scandella sit that one out.

 

[Brian39]

Wouldn’t being awful be better than being mediocre? I don’t want to get 82 points. Being on pace for that just makes things worse. Our underlying numbers are so bad that we should be a worse team and get a better draft pick. But Binnington may prevent that from happening. And all the respect to him, I love his competitiveness. But it is very clear that this is a bad hockey team no matter how you want to slice it between bottom 5 vs bottom 10.

I think the assumption that "being worse now makes things better later" is extremely flawed. The bottom half of this league is absolutely loaded with teams that struggle to ever translate a tank into respectability, let alone contention. Digging a hole deep enough for a bottom 5 finish very, very often leaves you with a hole too deep for elite talent to climb out of.

Buffalo has missed the playoffs for 12 straight years. They finished dead last (with just 52 points) in 2013/14. They lost the lottery (for Aaron Ekblad) and then won the tank-a-thon in 2015 to finish dead last again in the McDavid/Eichel draft. They lost the lottery, but got the Eichel consolation prize. Best-case scenario, they will make the playoffs a decade after that first dead-last season.

Arizona missed the playoffs a couple years, but didn't truly bottom out until 2014/15 in the McDavid sweepstakes. They have made the playoffs once since then and it was in the bubble playoffs where they made it as the 11 seed.

Vancouver finished 3rd to last in 2015/16 to kick of what became a 4 year playoff drought. In those 4 years they finished 3rd to last, 2nd to last, 6th to last and 9th to last. Then they made the bubble playoffs as the 7 seed! They have now missed the playoffs again 3 years n a row.

Detroit kicked off a 7 year (and counting) playoff drought in 2016/17 by finishing 6th to last. They then finished 5th to last, 4th to last, last, 5th to last, 8th to last, 9th to last, and are now hoping that this is the year they can finally get back to the playoffs.

These 4 teams are all in year 8+ of their full-tank rebuilds. They have a combined two playoff appearances (an 11 seed and a 7 seed). But they are not the only cautionary tales.

Edmonton missed the playoffs for 3 straight years from 2007-2009 before really going all-in on the tank in 2010. From 2009/10 through 2015/16 they finished last, last, 2nd to last, 7th to last, 3rd to last, and 3rd to last. Hey, tank rebuild #1 failed and they were in the middle of a 9 year playoff drought. BUT THEY GOT McDAVID! And Drai who they got at 3rd overall the year before also turned out to be a superstar. Rebuild over! Just kidding, they would miss the playoffs in 3 of McDavid's first 4 seasons. It's been 14 seasons since they committed to tanking and gunning for the 1st overall pick in 2009/10. They got four 1st overall picks, two more top 5 picks and three more top 10 picks since then and McDavid is entering his 9th NHL season. They have 5 total playoff appearances and have won 4 total rounds.

Ottawa kicked off a 6 year (and counting) playoff drought in 2017/18-2019/20 by finishing 2nd to last, last, and then 2nd to last again. They improved after that, but were bottom 12 in each of the next 3 seasons. They appear on the upswing in year 7, but still have some question marks and don't have the cap space to sign one of their better young players to a bridge deal (Shane Pinto).

Florida went full tank in 2010, finishing 3rd to last. They picked 3rd overall in 2010 and 2011, snuck into the playoffs in 2012, then went right back into the dumpster with a dead last finish in 2013 and a 2nd to last finish in 2014. Following this 5 year tank job, they missed the playoffs in 4 of 5 seasons. They didn't win a playoff round until 2022 (12 years after the initial tank), made a massive summer acquisition, and then made a very unpredicted run to the Final where they got their doors blown off.

Their are real consequences to not trying to win as the first wave of the future breaks into the NHL. I can't remember the last truly putrid team that developed a prospect goalie on that NHL roster and then reaped the rewards of his development. The Pens with Fleury? I have no confidence that Hofer develops into anything if we throw the towel in and concede to 3+ years of being terrible in front of him. That's a prospect that we are very likely just punting away in service of a tank.

You probably need to deal 2-3 players that could would still be useful pieces on a 2+ year plan if you truly want to tank this year. More stuff to fill in with new guys. And because of that, now your already existing prospects are coming onto a roster with no support and will either be plugged into a role they aren't ready for and their odds of floundering go way up.

I think you have to truly gut this roster of long term pieces to ensure a tank. That includes moving Binner with significant salary retention (or would have included buying him out last year) and moving at least one of Buch, Thomas, and Kyrou. I don't see a path to ensure a bottom 5 finish this year and then immediately get back on the upswing next year. I'd much, much rather give Berube enough pieces to strive to be in the middle 3rd of the league, commit to trading all the rentals barring a dramatic surprise in our ability, and then use the summer to figure out who the next coach of the team is.

I think a successful rebuild/retool is much more about recognizing the seasons to be sellers at the deadline (to accumulate as many quality assets as possible) is more important than intentionally removing talent to increase lottery odds and improve your draft position. Vegas just won a Cup by using their futures to acquire talent. Florida failed turning high draft picks into a deep playoff run and then finally got there after packaging talent for a dynamic mid-20s player. Army parlayed a bucnh of futures into half a decade of a damn good 1-2 center punch. I care much more about stockpiling assets at the deadline than I do about where our pick lands.

 

[Blueston]

I think the assumption that "being worse now makes things better later" is extremely flawed. The bottom half of this league is absolutely loaded with teams that struggle to ever translate a tank into respectability, let alone contention. Digging a hole deep enough for a bottom 5 finish very, very often leaves you with a hole too deep for elite talent to climb out of.

Buffalo has missed the playoffs for 12 straight years. They finished dead last (with just 52 points) in 2013/14. They lost the lottery (for Aaron Ekblad) and then won the tank-a-thon in 2015 to finish dead last again in the McDavid/Eichel draft. They lost the lottery, but got the Eichel consolation prize. Best-case scenario, they will make the playoffs a decade after that first dead-last season.

Arizona missed the playoffs a couple years, but didn't truly bottom out until 2014/15 in the McDavid sweepstakes. They have made the playoffs once since then and it was in the bubble playoffs where they made it as the 11 seed.

Vancouver finished 3rd to last in 2015/16 to kick of what became a 4 year playoff drought. In those 4 years they finished 3rd to last, 2nd to last, 6th to last and 9th to last. Then they made the bubble playoffs as the 7 seed! They have now missed the playoffs again 3 years n a row.

Detroit kicked off a 7 year (and counting) playoff drought in 2016/17 by finishing 6th to last. They then finished 5th to last, 4th to last, last, 5th to last, 8th to last, 9th to last, and are now hoping that this is the year they can finally get back to the playoffs.

These 4 teams are all in year 8+ of their full-tank rebuilds. They have a combined two playoff appearances (an 11 seed and a 7 seed). But they are not the only cautionary tales.

Edmonton missed the playoffs for 3 straight years from 2007-2009 before really going all-in on the tank in 2010. From 2009/10 through 2015/16 they finished last, last, 2nd to last, 7th to last, 3rd to last, and 3rd to last. Hey, tank rebuild #1 failed and they were in the middle of a 9 year playoff drought. BUT THEY GOT McDAVID! And Drai who they got at 3rd overall the year before also turned out to be a superstar. Rebuild over! Just kidding, they would miss the playoffs in 3 of McDavid's first 4 seasons. It's been 14 seasons since they committed to tanking and gunning for the 1st overall pick in 2009/10. They got four 1st overall picks, two more top 5 picks and three more top 10 picks since then and McDavid is entering his 9th NHL season. They have 5 total playoff appearances and have won 4 total rounds.

Ottawa kicked off a 6 year (and counting) playoff drought in 2017/18-2019/20 by finishing 2nd to last, last, and then 2nd to last again. They improved after that, but were bottom 12 in each of the next 3 seasons. They appear on the upswing in year 7, but still have some question marks and don't have the cap space to sign one of their better young players to a bridge deal (Shane Pinto).

Florida went full tank in 2010, finishing 3rd to last. They picked 3rd overall in 2010 and 2011, snuck into the playoffs in 2012, then went right back into the dumpster with a dead last finish in 2013 and a 2nd to last finish in 2014. Following this 5 year tank job, they missed the playoffs in 4 of 5 seasons. They didn't win a playoff round until 2022 (12 years after the initial tank), made a massive summer acquisition, and then made a very unpredicted run to the Final where they got their doors blown off.

Their are real consequences to not trying to win as the first wave of the future breaks into the NHL. I can't remember the last truly putrid team that developed a prospect goalie on that NHL roster and then reaped the rewards of his development. The Pens with Fleury? I have no confidence that Hofer develops into anything if we throw the towel in and concede to 3+ years of being terrible in front of him. That's a prospect that we are very likely just punting away in service of a tank.

You probably need to deal 2-3 players that could would still be useful pieces on a 2+ year plan if you truly want to tank this year. More stuff to fill in with new guys. And because of that, now your already existing prospects are coming onto a roster with no support and will either be plugged into a role they aren't ready for and their odds of floundering go way up.

I think you have to truly gut this roster of long term pieces to ensure a tank. That includes moving Binner with significant salary retention (or would have included buying him out last year) and moving at least one of Buch, Thomas, and Kyrou. I don't see a path to ensure a bottom 5 finish this year and then immediately get back on the upswing next year. I'd much, much rather give Berube enough pieces to strive to be in the middle 3rd of the league, commit to trading all the rentals barring a dramatic surprise in our ability, and then use the summer to figure out who the next coach of the team is.

You laid out beautifully why Army doesn’t want to tear things complete down. He is trying to do full rebuild without bottoming out for extended period. It’s not easy, but as you laid out neither is scorched earth rebuild.