"Rebuilding" is infecting sports

[King In The North]

Get rid of the salary cap and you won't get rebuilding teams nearly as much.

Think of the disparity.

 

[SprDaVE]

Think of the Disparity.

I don't think it's been much different pre or post salary cap in terms of parity.

Either way, the point was about the term rebuilding being more and more the way to build your team. The salary cap is one of the reasons why rebuilding through the draft is the way to go.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Think of the Disparity.

hahaha, the Leafs and Rangers more than proved that you can simply spend your way to a Cup

 

[King In The North]

hahaha, the Leafs and Rangers more than proved that you can simply spend your way to a Cup

Good point.

 

[AD1066]

I think the league does trend towards parity on a longer timeline, corresponding with the life cycle of a team's core. Between 2006-2008 we saw teams like Chicago, Washington, Pittsburgh, Boston, Tampa, and LA all finish in the bottom five at least once. Four of them have won a Cup since then and it wouldn't be surprising to see Tampa break through in the next year or two. And within five years I also wouldn't be surprised to see most of them in the basement at one point or another. Which roughly aligns with what you'd expect; any superstar drafted at 18 should remain productive into his early-to-mid 30s.

 

[ChiefWiggum]

The only way to create a contender in the NHL is through the draft. Trades in the NHL are never effective in creating a contender and superstar free agents never hit the market and when they do, it seems there is only a short window to win with them before they pass their p-rime through age (see Parise and Suter). The best way to create a winning team is through the draft (Pittsburgh, LA, Boston)

 

[snipes]

I do think rebuilding is overvalued. I agree with the premise. But you are ignoring a few things

-The Rangers are bringing back NHL talent as part of the returns and they don't see this as a very long project. (we'll see)
-They got fantastic returns in their other trades.
-The Rangers org totally soured on Miller and he was practically a throw-in from our perspective. Not saying he can't be good for Tampa, but we had zero interest in keeping him. He'd be gone even if we were Cup contenders.

Also, rebuilding sucks. Like, the Rangers have been unwatchable for two years and it makes me miserable. People need to stop seeing this as a "reward."

Yup, watching your team lose absolutely sucks. At least the Rangers has some playoff wins, President Cup.

You think it’s miserable now? You’re in for a fun ride.

 

[KingsFan7824]

absolutely.

it dilutes talent, and kills the actual competitiveness of a league for a perceived competitiveness.

advocates say "look at all the teams in contention late" but ignore its because you have artificially forced all of the teams to the same level of mediocrity. by forcing the elevation of the bad teams, you also cut the legs out from under the great ones until every one is the same bunch of boring blah.

the cap is also the main reason scoring has been low. Scoring was so high in the 80s and early 90s because you had garbage teams and teams loaded with top talent. That let the top talent play against far inferior competition and jack up their stats in the process.

when every team is close together in talent, you get stale mates on the ice. Neither team can break through the other because every one is closely matched. So instead you get what we have now, guys skating up and down the ice hoping for 1 or 2 deflection goals.

Overinflated point totals good, overinflated playoff races bad. Sounds like more of a preference than an actual physical law of the universe.

Scoring started going down in the mid 80's. The trend was already present before Detroit's left wing lock, or NJ's trap, or the cap.

Get rid of the salary cap and you won't get rebuilding teams nearly as much.

You get the perpetual farm teams in the NHL though. They might surprise one year, maybe even win a Cup, but they have no staying power. You can point to the Devils, but they built through the draft. You can say well if you can't keep up with the big spenders, get out of the league, but that's easier said than done.

Plus, the last true dynasty team came when free agency was barely a thing. When players had less choice, that's when you had the truly great teams. So it's not just the cap. Free agency is also an issue.

I don't think it's been much different pre or post salary cap in terms of parity.

Either way, the point was about the term rebuilding being more and more the way to build your team. The salary cap is one of the reasons why rebuilding through the draft is the way to go.

Building through the draft has always been the way to go. At least for as long as the draft has been around. Pittsburgh tanked for Lemieux. The Wings got Yzerman, and raided the Soviet Union in the draft. Other than Gretzky, the Oilers drafted their HoF team. The Islanders drafted well in the 70's.

People keep saying the cap is about parity. No, it's about cost control. That's it. There's nothing in the CBA that says you're not allowed to win 10 Cups in a row if you can make that work.

 

[tony d]

Rebuilding is an integral part of the game. It's good to build for the future especially if the team is down on its luck.

 

[nickschultzfan]

Rebuilding is the cure to GMs overselling owners and fans on the competitiveness of their mediocre sports team which has plagued professional sports for decades.

 

[SprDaVE]

Overinflated point totals good, overinflated playoff races bad. Sounds like more of a preference than an actual physical law of the universe.

Scoring started going down in the mid 80's. The trend was already present before Detroit's left wing lock, or NJ's trap, or the cap.



You get the perpetual farm teams in the NHL though. They might surprise one year, maybe even win a Cup, but they have no staying power. You can point to the Devils, but they built through the draft. You can say well if you can't keep up with the big spenders, get out of the league, but that's easier said than done.

Plus, the last true dynasty team came when free agency was barely a thing. When players had less choice, that's when you had the truly great teams. So it's not just the cap. Free agency is also an issue.



Building through the draft has always been the way to go. At least for as long as the draft has been around. Pittsburgh tanked for Lemieux. The Wings got Yzerman, and raided the Soviet Union in the draft. Other than Gretzky, the Oilers drafted their HoF team. The Islanders drafted well in the 70's.

People keep saying the cap is about parity. No, it's about cost control. That's it. There's nothing in the CBA that says you're not allowed to win 10 Cups in a row if you can make that work.

But there wasn't perpetual tanking/drafting like there is today. Not having a salary cap meant keeping your drafted players for pretty much life.

The point isn't that drafting was never a thing. Players come through the draft, so obviously it's a tool to find your players... which is pretty obvious.

The teams you mentioned weren't primarly all 20-25 year old core players when they were winning their Stanley Cups. Look at the Stanley Cup winning teams in the last decade... it's a big difference from the Red Wings or Devils cups run, even if the primary way they were built was through the draft. Give those teams a salary cap to work with and it's very likely a different outcome all together.

The salary cap made it harder for teams to keep their players and it made it harder to trade. So now cheap young players is the way to go to build your team, which is done through the draft obviously. The main thing why the salary cap was brought in was to stop teams spending ~80M on a team compared to some teams that couldn't spend more than ~40-50M (at the time).

I don't mind the salary cap but it does bring a lot of negatives, just like having no salary cap brings in negatives.

 

[KingsFan7824]

But there wasn't perpetual tanking/drafting like there is today. Not having a salary cap meant keeping your drafted players for pretty much life.

There was no salary cap before 1995, which is when players mostly remained where they were forever, unless the team moved you. When money started becoming a bigger issue is when teams started to have to sell guys off. The breakup of the Oilers dynasty is example #1.

The teams you mentioned weren't primarly all 20-26 year old core players when they were winning their stanley cups.

I'll have to disagree with you on that one. Look at the Oilers, Islanders, and Canadiens. Same with the 90's Pens. Detroit in the late 90's is when a relatively older team started winning the Cup.

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The salary cap made it harder for teams to keep their players and it made it harder to trade. So now cheap young players is the way to go to build your team.

It's tougher to keep the depth guys, but the big name guys on a given team usually don't go anywhere today. It helps that the contract length rules are in favor of a player's current team. It is much more difficult to make trades though, that's true.

There's an inability to cover your mistakes with money. The cap has made every GM into what a small market GM without a cap used to be.

 

[dasaybz]

Yesterday the Rangers made a trade they shouldn't have made - two solid players, one arguably a star, and they got a minimal return from Tampa - in the name of "rebuilding".

The NHL needs to find a way to reward bubble teams who may or may not make the playoffs and probably won't win it all. There has to be a way to stop this rebuilding trend that has been infecting baseball and basketball and is now infecting hockey too.

Are you new to sports?

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

The only way to create a contender in the NHL is through the draft. Trades in the NHL are never effective in creating a contender and superstar free agents never hit the market and when they do, it seems there is only a short window to win with them before they pass their p-rime through age (see Parise and Suter). The best way to create a winning team is through the draft (Pittsburgh, LA, Boston)

Boston benefited greatly from signing the single best UFA of the cap era.

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

The lottery will crush teams like Arizona and Vancouver who haven't been lucky enough to win it. But also lack the latent to break away from it.

If you advocate giving the #1 pick to the best non-playoff team so they don't get caught in mediocrity, what are you dooming the #31 team to be caught in? Abject talent poverty until they fold?

 

[NJ DevLolz]

Yup, watching your team lose absolutely sucks. At least the Rangers has some playoff wins, President Cup.

You think it’s miserable now? You’re in for a fun ride.

Let's all hope so.

I can't help but to be giddy over the return the Rangers got in the Nash/McDonagh trades. It looks like they'll have a lot of middle 6/bottom 4 talent, but there are no stars in that system unless you think highly of Buchnevich or Chytil. Certainly no superstars. You need superstars to win in this league

 

[ChiefWiggum]

Boston benefited greatly from signing the single best UFA of the cap era.

True but how can you justify a team basing their entire building strategy on the foundation of free agency because of the single isolated case where Chara signed with the Bruins. Look at the rest of their team: Bergeron, Marchand, Krejci all came from the draft.

It looks like Minnesota tried that route and the gamble didnt work as they now have an albatross contract on the books for Zack Parise which will expire after the sun blows up and he is basically reduced to the effectiveness of a 2nd line forward at best.

That's like saying that it is okay to trade a budding superstar prospect because of that one time where Calgary traded Brett Hull but won the cup.

 

[Howboutthempanthers]

Why? If your team has no chance at winning the cup and you have valuable players that can get assets to start over, why not do it?

Why does the NHL need to reward bubble teams? Their reward is semi-competent management.

And like, winning games and stuff.

 

[Howboutthempanthers]

because most of the times the assets that come back don't make a difference for a few years. it also shows a losing attitude, which infects organizations and fan bases and they expect after a few years they will star winning like its as easy as a flip of the switch.

rebuilds fail more than they work out.

Because it's only one team that wins every year. Of course most of them fail, so do most of everything else.

"like its as easy as a flip of the switch." No, the people who are against rebuilds keep saying that. The people that are at the point where they want their team to rebuild don't think that at all. Actually it's quite the opposite. The people that want a rebuild don't want to sit through mediocrity until the end of eternity hoping for that "miracle run".

 

[Howboutthempanthers]

Why is their inability to build a team capable of going all the way the NHL's problem?

There's always going to be great teams and there's always going to be terrible teams. Naturally, there'll be some teams in the middle. That's the way it is. You're asking for a solution to an imaginary problem that can't be solved anyways.

What's the matter with you? Didn't you know about those 30 way ties that this league had for years?

 

[Howboutthempanthers]

Some things I've observed as a Devils fan who watched what Shero did with fascination:

1) Everything starts from the top. Ownership sucks or meddles or is clueless, you're ****ed.

Been saying this for so long.......
And you can look at other sports as examples too.

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

True but how can you justify a team basing their entire building strategy on the foundation of free agency because of the single isolated case where Chara signed with the Bruins. Look at the rest of their team: Bergeron, Marchand, Krejci all came from the draft.

It looks like Minnesota tried that route and the gamble didnt work as they now have an albatross contract on the books for Zack Parise which will expire after the sun blows up and he is basically reduced to the effectiveness of a 2nd line forward at best.

That's like saying that it is okay to trade a budding superstar prospect because of that one time where Calgary traded Brett Hull but won the cup.

Boston had a miracle UFA and John Galt in goal. The other teams have all won based on some very high draft picks.

 

[ES]

If one team went 42-40, 29 teams 41-41 and one team 40-42, in HFBoards the conclusion is that 40-42 team was tanking.

 

[thekernel]

Rebuilding is the cure to GMs overselling owners and fans on the competitiveness of their mediocre sports team which has plagued professional sports for decades.

Well, as a sports fan, there must be no worse fate than to have a franchise accept it's rebuilding, but never seem to be able to stop losing even after 5+ years (Edmonton, Arizona)

It's not a "plague" on professional sports. You simply don't understand how the people playing the game and managing the game are wired. The NHL is the best of the best, only the most successful players will get a sniff. These are players and coaches who got to the NHL because all their life all they've done is win and succeed. You don't just ask them to accept mediocrity. I find it insane that you'd think this attitude is a plague -- the competitiveness of every team and every game is why the NHL is so much fun to watch, so much more than the other big 4 sports....

 

[tucson83]

The only way to create a contender in the NHL is through the draft. Trades in the NHL are never effective in creating a contender and superstar free agents never hit the market and when they do, it seems there is only a short window to win with them before they pass their p-rime through age (see Parise and Suter). The best way to create a winning team is through the draft (Pittsburgh, LA, Boston)

anything after the first round is a hit and mess, that's why teams have issues on becoming contenders because they put everything on hoping that the players they drafted after the first round they become great players which they dont. most of the time it's not the players they drafted that makes their team better, it's the players they get either from the first round, from free agency, or trades that makes the team better.

i get the salary cap, but it doesnt mean the draft is the only way to get better because you dont know those players are going to be good or not. it's just the matter of smart spending and trading for players that can make your team better. relying on the draft is a a recipe for failure especially when those players you drafted after the first round, it takes 3 to 4 years for them to play in the nhl, you wait through all that losing for 3 and 4 years and those players become nothing and now you are the oilers for 10 years because you think the draft will give you everything and not taking chances on improving your team through trades and free agency.

that's why the flyers werent crap after the 06 season because homer knew the draft will not fix this team right now, he traded picks for players that will make this team better now.