This is out of the 2009-Today era.
We know this team has never committed to a proper rebuild; even when they had a chance to really bottom out, all they could suffer was a single year of actual tear down; then right away spent a bunch of UFA money, made trades to be 'competitive' again.
If anyone thinks this team is going to start moving everyone out of town, getting prospects and draft picks... I wonder if they're watching the same team the rest of us have. They just won't do it. Hoping for it is just a useless endeavor that ends up in disappointment. People who've been around here for a while know that I've been beating the proper rebuild drum since 2013. A decade. A decade and they literally could commit only one year to actually doing it.
I'm sorry, but you guys who are like 'rip it down! Tear it down! They'll bottom out anyway' are just not paying attention. You're just setting yourself up for failure/misery.
I just really think it's a myth that NHL teams ever actually commit to "scorched earth" rebuilds.
People will point to Colorado. "You have to be bad for 5 years to get the good players." You cannot plan to be as bad as the Avalanche were to get Mackinnon and Makar. Unless, you're the Tim Murray-Botterill Sabres rebuild. Trade literally everything away in an attempt to get McDavid. Botterill didn't really go after any UFAs until Jeff Skinner 8x9. 10 years on from Tim Murray going scorched earth, the Sabres haven't made the playoffs.
Back to Colorado. What does Sakic do right after snagging Mackinnon? Spends a bunch of UFA money on Soberberg, Comeau, Beauchemin, on multi-year deals. The next year he re-signs 27 year old Erik Johnson 7x7. MacKinnon didn't really emerge as a superstar until his 5th season anyway.
The Leafs are one that everyone cites as doing it the right way that actually leads to sustained contention. After Burke/Nonis left them with a terrible, bloated roster that couldn't make the playoffs, and Shanahan says they're going to do it right: Lamoriello trades for Andersen at 5 million, and starts acquiring players. Doesn't work out, and they truly bottom out in 2016. After getting Marner and Matthews (I will harp on this until the end of time- the Flames were bottom 5 that year, in that lottery, and got Matthew Tkachuk out of it) straight away re-signed Andersen 5x5, then Marleau 3x6.75, Hainsey 2x3, sprinkling in other lower-end, multi-year veteran signings like Martin and Winnik. Two summers after drafting Matthews they sign Tavares 8x11. People will say, well, they already had a stable of young stars like Nylander. No. Nylander was not a result of planned rebuild. He was a result of Nonis' failures. Drafted 8th overall in a year they tried to make the playoffs.
The Panthers, whom everyone says did it the right way: ie, be bad forever, and really commit to that rebuild. Tallon, the supposed architect of this Panthers team, after bottoming out and drafting Gudbrandson, and Huberdeau at #3, right away he signs Fleischmann, Kopecky, Jovanovski, Upshall, Bergenheim to 4 year deals. Then Filip Kuba 2x4mill. They don't improve, and draft Barkov at 2, and Ekblad 1s overall. What do they do July 1 after drafting Ekblad 1st overall? Sign Jokinen 4x4, Bolland 5x5, Mitchell4x2, Derek MacKenzie, to multi year deals.
Perhaps, the Flames shouldn't have signed Huberdeau, Weegar, and Kadri last summer. That course would have signaled a "rebuild." However, no NHL owner would then let them go 5 years without spending on UFAs.
People will say, well, the Arizona/Buffalo method of trading every body and never signing a UFA for 10 years has never been tried with competent management. No NHL owner allows a GM to get that far. Murray was fired for how bad they got in his short tenure. The current Coyotes are an entirely unique case, and if Bill Armstrong doesn't get some results, even he might be out the door.
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