Not to put words in his mouth, but I feel that his frustration and many fans frustration is completely reasonable and warranted. Its been 12 years without a single playoff victory, yet we continue down the same path.
I think what frustrates most fans, and myself included, is that it does not take this long to rebuild. Over the course of the past decade we have seen teams worse than us, then become better than us, then bottom out, only to become better than us again. The Edmonton Oilers come to mind.
We have also seen multiple teams that were serious Cup contenders at the beginning of our franchise, bottom out and finish worse than us in the standings, and are now back in the playoffs again. Two examples would be the Lightning and Penguins.
Point is. Other teams rebuild not only quicker but more efficiently than us. Youre not this bad, this long, without there being a major problem.
Okay, so how long
does it take? And how long does it take when starting with close to nothing?
You cite Pittsburgh. I'll point out that Pittsburgh had an obscene amount of good fortune in being able to do the following:
1) Draft Crosby, Malkin, Fleury, and Staal in consecutive years.
2) Get multiple productive players from the 2000-06 later rounds, who at least had trade value if they didn't actually end up producing for Pittsburgh.
3) Have an NHL roster in 2004 loaded with clearly non-NHL players who could be immediately cast aside without a second thought.
4) Have an immediate draw (in Crosby) for free agents.
You cite Tampa Bay. Tampa won a Stanley Cup in 2004. If you go before that, they....
- Drafted Lecavalier and Richards, and got St. Louis and Boyle for basically nothing.
- Were extraordinarily active in the trade market. A huge number did absolutely nothing, but they had some gems.
- Since then, they've gone completely to the bottom, drafted Stamkos, and may have re-emerged. Time will tell.
Let's throw Chicago in there too. They bottomed out and got Kane and Toews during those years, but before that, a good 65% of their Stanley Cup team had already been drafted and was developing. When Chicago picked Kane, they already had:
- Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Adam Burish, Dustin Byfuglien, Troy Brouwer, Brian Bickell, Dave Bolland, Niklas Hjalmarsson, and Tuomo Ruutu (later traded for Andrew Ladd). Matt Ellison had also already been traded for Patrick Sharp.
Why do I bring up Chicago? Because that's a list of who they had on their roster in June of 2007.
Here's who Columbus had, and you can add in Brassard, Mason, and Russell as far as guys who hadn't yet suited up.
Completely botching seven consecutive drafts, as Doug MacLean did, is a huge part of what we see today. Look at 2003, when we saw Zherdev and Fritsche come to Columbus while Weber and Suter went to Nashville, Carter and Richards to Philly, and Perry and Getzlaf to Anaheim. Look at what Chicago was developing even as their actual NHL roster was crashing and burning. Look at all the pieces St. Louis had even as they were finishing dead last.
It's foolish to basically shrug and say, "Yeah, well, that was a long time ago." Columbus was much more comparable to Atlanta, whose perennial struggles were a direct result of poor drafting....of course, they drafted better than MacLean ever did. Every poor trade, every premier player not drafted, all accumulates. It's not anywhere close to as simple as "Team X did it, so therefore we should be able to do it just as quickly". Compare the rosters and farm systems in 2007 to any other team, then we'll talk.
This isn't college football, where two excellent recruiting classes can carry an also-ran into the BCS within four years. It's not the NFL, where a single strong draft and a couple of free agent signings can turn a 3-13 team into a Super Bowl champion. The NHL is a lot closer to MLB. Unless you're drafting a truly elite prospect, no one you take is even going to be in the league inside of three years, let alone be an All-Star. Take a look at the Pirates, who have flirted with the top of the NL Central the last two years and look to be improving every single year (79-83 last year being their best mark since 1997, and tying for the best since 1992). When was their GM hired? 2007. What did he have on the roster and farm system? More than what Dougie left in Columbus.
