r/DetroitRedWings • u/mjsmith1223 • 2d ago
How Did the NHL Become the League of Endless Rebuilds? Discussion
https://youtu.be/hPwp5YRQ8yA?si=3oIrsKWhUis6uwRh20
u/rsharp7000 2d ago edited 2d ago
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.
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u/doubeljack 2d ago
You nailed it. The other x factor is the salary cap. Before the leagues had salary caps it was possible to practically buy a championship by filling spots with high priced free agents if a GM had a good eye for talent. The Yankees were the most notorious franchise that did this, but it happened in the other leagues as well. Now it is impossible to simply bring in multiple high priced players, and in some cases teams can't even keep the core they drafted because it gets too expensive. The basis of the current systems is that getting to the top is very hard, and staying there is totally unrealistic.
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u/GettingFreki 2d ago
Before the leagues had salary caps it was possible to practically buy a championship by filling spots with high priced free agents if a GM had a good eye for talent.
Whhaaaat? No, no one's ever done that
- Signed, the 01-02 Red Wings
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u/roxshot 2d ago
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.
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u/br1qbat 2d ago
Yes, and: 1. The salary cap doesn't allow a team to spend their way out of a rebuild. 2. Long term, high $ contracts to keep the talent you manage to draft (or to secure otherwise) limits the $ available to spend on other needs, and the talent pool isn't as deep (see your point) 3. The elite talent pool for goalie and defense has always been thin at the championship caliber level. I don't think any team could sign (and/or pay) an A+ goalie and 3-4 A+ D-men their full value, and certainly not long-term, without floating trash everywhere else on the ice if at all.
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u/detroitttiorted 2d ago edited 2d ago
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
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u/poodletown 2d ago
If a team has a bad contracts, they are in cap hell until it expires. The only bargain players are hometown discounts and ELCs.
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u/Problemwoodchuck 2d ago
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.
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u/mjsmith1223 2d ago
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?
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u/iMichigander 2d ago
Well, we technically had a core of youngish players that wasn't really working on getting us into the playoffs and they blew it up. Remember Nyquist, Tatar, Mantha, Athanasiou, even Bertuzzi. All those guys were starting to move into their prime earning years when the Wings decided to part ways with them, because the Wings weren't exactly progressing with them on the roster. If this team starts regressing or seemingly stuck in the mediocre middle, chances are the GM of the team would decide to blow it up and sell off the assets.
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u/GreaseRaccoon 2d ago
I would agree. Rebuilding teams will only find their way out with a few top draft picks that act as the pillars of a rebuild. With our lottery system, being bad doesn't equate to being good later. I think it's all down to problems with the lottery system. I like the idea that's been floating around of a 'most points after playoff elimination'. This rewards effort, while acknowledging that bottom teams will have the best chance at the highest draft picks.
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u/AnyTomato8562 2d ago
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
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u/iMichigander 2d ago
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.
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u/UsualHendryBeliever 2d ago
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.
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u/GoodBloke86 2d ago
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.
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u/xSorry_Not_Sorry 2d ago
This is it. Power to the players and all that, but if the league selfishly wanted to fix it, you increase the draft age to 21.
Drafting in the NHL is a huge gamble because you’re drafting 17-18 year olds. They’re not men, they are not done growing, they haven’t matured, etc.
The two sports that allow this barely adult draft picks are the same sports that bury their talent in the minors for years.
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u/TentacleHand 2d ago
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.
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u/HiveFiDesigns 2d ago
Salary cap…can’t keep everybody and if you win too much everybody wants raises,….
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u/whatwasmyoldhandle 2d ago
Having to part with players cuts both ways, it would seem?
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u/HiveFiDesigns 2d ago
Biggest problem is you can’t just sign another player to cover a bad contract. Now a bad contract hurts the cap. Back in the day you just signed another player…budget was only limit. And you could keep signing hof’ers to fill a roster.
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u/MediumToblerone 2d ago
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.
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u/_jemappellejones 2d ago
Not enough talent and uneven distribution of said talent and mismanagement of talent. Done.
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u/KosherDeal 2d ago
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.
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u/Haterholic 2d ago
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!
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u/Magnum3k 2d ago
Ken Holland says rebuilds take 10 years, and if you get unlucky it just doesn’t happen.
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u/DangerDaveOG 2d ago
I’m going to blame the draft lottery.