How Did the NHL Become the League of Endless Rebuilds?
November 12, 2024
How Did the NHL Become the League of Endless Rebuilds?
25 comments
I watched the video. There are some good points.
I agree that seemingly neverending rebuilds decrease fan interest overall. Who wants to watch a perennial loser?
Once stuck in a rebuild process, how does a team break out of it without a #1 pick that turns into a superstar?
Does the current salary cap structure doom teams to mediocrity unless they can draft very very well?
Are the Wings stuck in the Bermuda Triangle until a recent draft pick turns into a superstar?
Every winning team has either a bunch of really, really, good players or a superstar or two, and for a handful of teams both.
The Wings have two maybe three really good players, that won’t cut it
[deleted]
A lot of people haven’t adjusted to a league bigger than the 90’s 24-28 teams and without really any perennially dog shit teams due to ownership issues/brutal expansion rules (Panthers, Coyotes, Thrashers etc)
For A LOT of NHL history making the playoffs was a joke of a goal for most teams. It’s different now
I’m going to blame the draft lottery.
Between all the 4 major N.A. sports, all the leagues besides the NFL have the potential for endless rebuilds. You don’t even have to look outside of Detroit to see that. Pistons and Tigers have also been rebuilding forever. Honestly, it mostly just comes down to luck. Whether that’s draft lottery luck or that your players exceeding what their draft potential is. That’s the case for all leagues. You can’t build through free agency or trades, you can only compliment the team.
With the NFL, you get ready-to-play rookies all the way through the 3rd round. It’s much easier to turn around a franchise with that large of a talent pool.
The other 3 major sports, it takes years for draft picks to develop most of the time. With the case of the NHL and NBA, it’s pretty rare to find top of the lineup players outside the 1st round. With the NBA you’re mostly just needing to get a talented starting 5 to build around (really it could happen with 2-3). The NHL you’re looking for probably 10-12 players that need to make up the team through the draft (the rest can be traded or FA). So at a minimum you’re talking about 4-5 years of drafts and then 3-4 years for them all to develop before you really even know what you have. If you don’t get it right from the onset or just have bad luck, you have to start over again and collect more draft picks.
I don’t really see a way forward or system that changes this, other than changing the league rookie age minimum to 21 so it allows for the AHL to develop players better and then draft eligibility age to also be 21. That’s not happening though.
If a team has a bad contracts, they are in cap hell until it expires. The only bargain players are hometown discounts and ELCs.
Draft lottery has screwed us and 18 yr old kids are entering a league where physically and mentally mature adults rule the roost…The NHL has always been a mixed bag when it comes to drafting and rebuilding
The NHL is still an old boy’s club too, and with so many coaches, scouts, and GMs cycling through teams over and over, rebuilding teams especially seem to suffer from organizational tunnel vision overall.
I don’t man, 5 years is an absolutely okay time for a rebuild to take. Half the teams on the board have less time on the rebuild than that (thought for most I think it will take at least the 5 years). The other half of this equation is that you get dynasties that are good for a while. Not sure if that’s an issue. There has to be some stability, the build has to mean something.
And while yes it might be boring if the same teams make the playoffs each year it should also be said that in NHL the general level of competition is fairly close. If a good team has an off day even a bad team can take wins. Games themselves are decently close. I don’t think there’s a good fix it all, or if there should be, to change that in season long competition. I mean the reason for the long regular season is to weed out the best teams to make the top 16 (okay the real reason is ticket sales but this is a neat benefit).
I think you could cut short the rebuilds by increasing the draft odds if you’ve missed the playoffs for longer instead of it being just one season’s record because that’s the reality, rebuilds take time, it makes sense to look at the whole picture. Also to avoid Edmonton’s “luck” or luck, whichever way you want to put it, to balance out the previous you should then decrease the odds for teams that have picked 1st over teams that haven’t. The system gets clusterfucky but something like this would help to avoid situations like the Wings had.
Also, one of the reasons the rebuilds take so long is that every team tries to build a SC winner. When you are trying to build to be the best team you need a lot of talent, meaning lot of high picks, meaning of tanking for long or extra hard. If the solid playoff performers year in year out were appreciated, like Carolina, and not be though as a half joke “a mid team” “they missed their window to win, what a failure” many teams would adopt different timelines as their rebuilds would not aim for the same insanely hard thing to do. The culture that focuses only on the SC winner is one of the largest contributors of the issue.
Lastly, if we want to talk about boring and stale in the NHL, we shouldn’t focus too hard on longer dynasties and droughts, we should look at the idiotic playoff system. The same teams play against each other each year with little to no variation, *that* is boring. I think at most the west and east should play the first round within their conference (not division, fuck that) and then it is cross conference play. You’d get way more playoff parings and the generally stronger east could make much better quality finals compared to this system. When the regular season and best of 7 playoff system both work well in ensuring the better team advancing it is laughable that it is all undone by a stupid playoff bracket. If you want to fix boring in the league fix that. Then there’s a reason to talk about other things.
Too much expansion. There’s not enough high-end talent to go around. It’s about to get worse with two more teams likely being added.
In any market, there are inefficiencies that can be exploited. The Wings used to be good at this, but just haven’t been very good at that as of late. There are teams (Jets, Stars, Wild, Hurricanes, Kings) that are thriving right now who have not had a ton of #1 picks. A big part of their success is likely team chemistry, coaching, and finding quality talent deeper in the draft.
I blame contract length and the RFA system.
With 8 year deals becoming more and more common this league is going to become stagnant with star players never moving.
Salary cap…can’t keep everybody and if you win too much everybody wants raises,….
I don’t even think we’re a rebuilder at this point. I think we’re the victim of a really bad coach. Plug someone competent in and we’ll be fine.
The draft is well scouted, and careers are pretty long
I’m tired of the term “rebuild”. It’s lost pretty much all meaning. These days anyone who isn’t a “generational talent” is getting sent here and there and it’s all just a guessing game of what is going to work.
It is very simple – increase the age that players can get drafted so that they can make an impact right away. GMs buy time by keeping players in the minors so that a judgement can’t be made on them for 4-5 years at least. The first GM fails? Here’s a second GM that will need another 4-5 years for his rebuild. It is a crock of shit frankly. And who ends up suffering – the fans.
Nah just you. Get a better GM
Ken Holland says rebuilds take 10 years, and if you get unlucky it just doesn’t happen.
Not enough talent and uneven distribution of said talent and mismanagement of talent. Done.
each new team thins out the player pool further and further from the top stars to mids to even players in the minors leagues developing. Each new team makes it that much more difficult.
The owners make bank whether they win or lose
It’s the salary cap, man. Unless your team damn near makes the perfect draft picks or signs the perfect free agents, your favorite team is screwed way too harshly. You can’t just count your losses and move on from bad moves, they stick with you for years and you lose a generation of fans. Yeah, teams make bad picks and sign crappy players, but let them move on. Wings fans in Detroit under 20 have no concept of us being a winning organization, but, hey, gotta stick to the cap to teach ’em a lesson!
any league where you draft at age of 17/18 is going to take longer to rebuild
25 comments
I watched the video. There are some good points.
I agree that seemingly neverending rebuilds decrease fan interest overall. Who wants to watch a perennial loser?
Once stuck in a rebuild process, how does a team break out of it without a #1 pick that turns into a superstar?
Does the current salary cap structure doom teams to mediocrity unless they can draft very very well?
Are the Wings stuck in the Bermuda Triangle until a recent draft pick turns into a superstar?
Every winning team has either a bunch of really, really, good players or a superstar or two, and for a handful of teams both.
The Wings have two maybe three really good players, that won’t cut it
[deleted]
A lot of people haven’t adjusted to a league bigger than the 90’s 24-28 teams and without really any perennially dog shit teams due to ownership issues/brutal expansion rules (Panthers, Coyotes, Thrashers etc)
For A LOT of NHL history making the playoffs was a joke of a goal for most teams. It’s different now
I’m going to blame the draft lottery.
Between all the 4 major N.A. sports, all the leagues besides the NFL have the potential for endless rebuilds. You don’t even have to look outside of Detroit to see that. Pistons and Tigers have also been rebuilding forever. Honestly, it mostly just comes down to luck. Whether that’s draft lottery luck or that your players exceeding what their draft potential is. That’s the case for all leagues. You can’t build through free agency or trades, you can only compliment the team.
With the NFL, you get ready-to-play rookies all the way through the 3rd round. It’s much easier to turn around a franchise with that large of a talent pool.
The other 3 major sports, it takes years for draft picks to develop most of the time. With the case of the NHL and NBA, it’s pretty rare to find top of the lineup players outside the 1st round. With the NBA you’re mostly just needing to get a talented starting 5 to build around (really it could happen with 2-3). The NHL you’re looking for probably 10-12 players that need to make up the team through the draft (the rest can be traded or FA). So at a minimum you’re talking about 4-5 years of drafts and then 3-4 years for them all to develop before you really even know what you have. If you don’t get it right from the onset or just have bad luck, you have to start over again and collect more draft picks.
I don’t really see a way forward or system that changes this, other than changing the league rookie age minimum to 21 so it allows for the AHL to develop players better and then draft eligibility age to also be 21. That’s not happening though.
If a team has a bad contracts, they are in cap hell until it expires. The only bargain players are hometown discounts and ELCs.
Draft lottery has screwed us and 18 yr old kids are entering a league where physically and mentally mature adults rule the roost…The NHL has always been a mixed bag when it comes to drafting and rebuilding
The NHL is still an old boy’s club too, and with so many coaches, scouts, and GMs cycling through teams over and over, rebuilding teams especially seem to suffer from organizational tunnel vision overall.
I don’t man, 5 years is an absolutely okay time for a rebuild to take. Half the teams on the board have less time on the rebuild than that (thought for most I think it will take at least the 5 years). The other half of this equation is that you get dynasties that are good for a while. Not sure if that’s an issue. There has to be some stability, the build has to mean something.
And while yes it might be boring if the same teams make the playoffs each year it should also be said that in NHL the general level of competition is fairly close. If a good team has an off day even a bad team can take wins. Games themselves are decently close. I don’t think there’s a good fix it all, or if there should be, to change that in season long competition. I mean the reason for the long regular season is to weed out the best teams to make the top 16 (okay the real reason is ticket sales but this is a neat benefit).
I think you could cut short the rebuilds by increasing the draft odds if you’ve missed the playoffs for longer instead of it being just one season’s record because that’s the reality, rebuilds take time, it makes sense to look at the whole picture. Also to avoid Edmonton’s “luck” or luck, whichever way you want to put it, to balance out the previous you should then decrease the odds for teams that have picked 1st over teams that haven’t. The system gets clusterfucky but something like this would help to avoid situations like the Wings had.
Also, one of the reasons the rebuilds take so long is that every team tries to build a SC winner. When you are trying to build to be the best team you need a lot of talent, meaning lot of high picks, meaning of tanking for long or extra hard. If the solid playoff performers year in year out were appreciated, like Carolina, and not be though as a half joke “a mid team” “they missed their window to win, what a failure” many teams would adopt different timelines as their rebuilds would not aim for the same insanely hard thing to do. The culture that focuses only on the SC winner is one of the largest contributors of the issue.
Lastly, if we want to talk about boring and stale in the NHL, we shouldn’t focus too hard on longer dynasties and droughts, we should look at the idiotic playoff system. The same teams play against each other each year with little to no variation, *that* is boring. I think at most the west and east should play the first round within their conference (not division, fuck that) and then it is cross conference play. You’d get way more playoff parings and the generally stronger east could make much better quality finals compared to this system. When the regular season and best of 7 playoff system both work well in ensuring the better team advancing it is laughable that it is all undone by a stupid playoff bracket. If you want to fix boring in the league fix that. Then there’s a reason to talk about other things.
Too much expansion. There’s not enough high-end talent to go around. It’s about to get worse with two more teams likely being added.
In any market, there are inefficiencies that can be exploited. The Wings used to be good at this, but just haven’t been very good at that as of late. There are teams (Jets, Stars, Wild, Hurricanes, Kings) that are thriving right now who have not had a ton of #1 picks. A big part of their success is likely team chemistry, coaching, and finding quality talent deeper in the draft.
I blame contract length and the RFA system.
With 8 year deals becoming more and more common this league is going to become stagnant with star players never moving.
Salary cap…can’t keep everybody and if you win too much everybody wants raises,….
I don’t even think we’re a rebuilder at this point. I think we’re the victim of a really bad coach. Plug someone competent in and we’ll be fine.
The draft is well scouted, and careers are pretty long
I’m tired of the term “rebuild”. It’s lost pretty much all meaning. These days anyone who isn’t a “generational talent” is getting sent here and there and it’s all just a guessing game of what is going to work.
It is very simple – increase the age that players can get drafted so that they can make an impact right away. GMs buy time by keeping players in the minors so that a judgement can’t be made on them for 4-5 years at least. The first GM fails? Here’s a second GM that will need another 4-5 years for his rebuild. It is a crock of shit frankly. And who ends up suffering – the fans.
Nah just you. Get a better GM
Ken Holland says rebuilds take 10 years, and if you get unlucky it just doesn’t happen.
Not enough talent and uneven distribution of said talent and mismanagement of talent. Done.
each new team thins out the player pool further and further from the top stars to mids to even players in the minors leagues developing. Each new team makes it that much more difficult.
The owners make bank whether they win or lose
It’s the salary cap, man. Unless your team damn near makes the perfect draft picks or signs the perfect free agents, your favorite team is screwed way too harshly. You can’t just count your losses and move on from bad moves, they stick with you for years and you lose a generation of fans. Yeah, teams make bad picks and sign crappy players, but let them move on. Wings fans in Detroit under 20 have no concept of us being a winning organization, but, hey, gotta stick to the cap to teach ’em a lesson!
any league where you draft at age of 17/18 is going to take longer to rebuild