Toronto and Edmonton are contenders?
The team has largely been in crisis since 1990 or so.. There have been very short periods of unexpected regular season or playoff success, but long gone are its days of being a juggernaut, save they finish in the lottery five years straight and build a contender that way, in the mould of Chicago, Pittsburgh, Edmonton and Toronto, who for decades at a time each, were the NHL's doormats. Maybe this is year 1 of that decade? One can only hope.
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9 Team Full Keeper - Pts Only (G,A,W,SO)
Crosby, Wheeler, Bergeron, Forsberg, Connor, Kopitar, E.Lindholm, Pastrnak, DeBrincat, Fiala
Jones, Klingberg, Hamilton, Theodore, Letang
Saros, Shesterkin
Garland, Vrana, Bjorkstrand, Verhaege, Backstrom, Karlsson, Perunovich, Spurgeon, Pulock, Hellebuyck
Toronto and Edmonton are contenders?
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Definitely not yet, but they are arguably teams on the ups in terms of young talent. This year is in the tank for the Oilers, but I get the feeling they won't suck like this forever. You cash-in generational talent after generational talent in the top 5 of the draft for a while, even your own managerial ineptitude will give way to talent. It takes some luck, but many winners were recently built that way. I would handily take those teams' young cores (which include McDavid and Matthews as centrepieces) over the Habs'.
I also forgot to add the WSH Capitals to that list of doormats turned giants.
Blades of Steel
9 Team Full Keeper - Pts Only (G,A,W,SO)
Crosby, Wheeler, Bergeron, Forsberg, Connor, Kopitar, E.Lindholm, Pastrnak, DeBrincat, Fiala
Jones, Klingberg, Hamilton, Theodore, Letang
Saros, Shesterkin
Garland, Vrana, Bjorkstrand, Verhaege, Backstrom, Karlsson, Perunovich, Spurgeon, Pulock, Hellebuyck
There are far more examples of failed rebuilds than successful ones. The idea of "tear it down, draft high and all will be well" is faulty. The real answer is having the right people in place to make good decisions from top to bottom. Tearing it down is easy, building it back up is the challenge.
I don't consider Toronto and Edmonton to be contenders. Sure the potential is there but I don't give credit for incomplete work.
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Edmonton is a good example of how a bad GM can ruin a “re-build”. Just as Bergevin has pissed away Price’s prime, Chiarelli is going to screw away McDavid’s.
12 team Yahoo Roto keeper (keep 3)
9 F, 6 D; roster 3 G max
G,A,PPP,SOG,BLKS,HITS - W,SO,SV%,Saves
F: B Tkachuk, Stutzle, Eriksson Ek, Necas, Konecny, Cooley, Boldy, Lehkonen, Tippett
D: Dahlin, Seider, Matheson, Durzi, Addison, Mintyukov
G: Hill, Husso
IR:
Bench: L Hughes, Merzlikins, Terry, Tuch
I completely agree with you. Drafting high alone is by no means a path to success. Detroit didn't draft in the first round for what felt like a decade and they still performed well consistently.
Scouting and professional development are big keys to organizational success, in addition to shrewd asset management (contracts and trades) and coaching and front-office stability. Nashville is a great example of that, so are LA and SJS.
For an organization with the kind of profile and bankroll that it has, the Habs have not had those qualities since the late 80s which for many around here, is there entire lives. That's just crazy. So, in that vein, I find it may be just as well that this team finish in lottery territory for a handful of years in order to hedge their chances of failure at the draft table and bring in a professional development team able to turn those picks into impact NHL players and when I say impact, I don't mean less-talented guys with hearts of lions who will themselves to the NHL (Gallagher) but guys who can take over games and dominate play at both ends of the ice in a manner that makes winning a foregone conclusion. That kind of impact.
Blades of Steel
9 Team Full Keeper - Pts Only (G,A,W,SO)
Crosby, Wheeler, Bergeron, Forsberg, Connor, Kopitar, E.Lindholm, Pastrnak, DeBrincat, Fiala
Jones, Klingberg, Hamilton, Theodore, Letang
Saros, Shesterkin
Garland, Vrana, Bjorkstrand, Verhaege, Backstrom, Karlsson, Perunovich, Spurgeon, Pulock, Hellebuyck
Also, the Chicago example is not one of full tank/rebuild. They did what I outlined. They had players grossly exceed expectations (Toews, Seabrook, Keith, etc). But it wasn't a full tank job - Toews was a #3 pick and they obtained Kane by winning the lottery and jumping up to the #1 pick.
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I dunno eric, the Hawks were pretty well regular doormats there for quite a long time... The tank was not intentional but they were pretty bad for a pretty long time.. Toews was also a top 3 pick, so I don't know how he grossly exceeded expectations. I would expect a player ranked so highly to perform exactly as he has. Keith is probably the only one of that core that came out of nowhere from the 2nd round. The rest were top 10 NHL picks. They even had room for one bust in there (Barker).
Blades of Steel
9 Team Full Keeper - Pts Only (G,A,W,SO)
Crosby, Wheeler, Bergeron, Forsberg, Connor, Kopitar, E.Lindholm, Pastrnak, DeBrincat, Fiala
Jones, Klingberg, Hamilton, Theodore, Letang
Saros, Shesterkin
Garland, Vrana, Bjorkstrand, Verhaege, Backstrom, Karlsson, Perunovich, Spurgeon, Pulock, Hellebuyck
They were regular doormats because they kept swinging and missing in most of their key organizational decisions, not because they wanted to be there. They got out when they started doing things right.
Toews outperformed everyone drafted around him. To say you expect a #3 pick to be a future hall-of-famer is setting the bar far too high. Not many players get to that level.
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Well, he's never won a scoring title or anything, so it's not like he's a first-ballot HOFer on stats alone. He has won Cups, but that's a team thing.. I'd say he's performed pretty well as one should with that ranking. The bar is high, but so is the ranking. Relative to his draft year, I dunno..
Yeah I know they weren't trying to be door mats. I don't think any NHL front office will try to be door mats. All I am saying is that regardless of effort, it helped their draft position for a few years and in so, they ended up with the opportunity to draft no-brainer top talents for a bit, giving them a pool from which to play. It's not saying much, sure, but it did give them that.
Blades of Steel
9 Team Full Keeper - Pts Only (G,A,W,SO)
Crosby, Wheeler, Bergeron, Forsberg, Connor, Kopitar, E.Lindholm, Pastrnak, DeBrincat, Fiala
Jones, Klingberg, Hamilton, Theodore, Letang
Saros, Shesterkin
Garland, Vrana, Bjorkstrand, Verhaege, Backstrom, Karlsson, Perunovich, Spurgeon, Pulock, Hellebuyck
Writer of the weekly Top 10 column.
12-team Keeper pool, straight points for forwards & dmen. Goalies get: 2 points per win, 3 per shutout, 1 point per assist & 1 point per shootout loss.
League champ in 2013, 2015, 2018, 2020 and 2022.
Top 8 forwards, 5 dmen and 2 goalies count.
We keep 15 players (any position) plus two rookies.
Forwards: Panarin, Ovechkin, Kopitar, Stamkos, Tuch, Rust, Marchessault, Pavelski, Miller, Bertuzzi, Stone, Kakko, Brown, Stankoven, Kovalenko
Defence: Hedman, Fox, Matheson, Thrun, Jiricek
Goalies: Kochetkov, Talbot, Vasilevskiy, Campbell, Schmid
Blades of Steel
9 Team Full Keeper - Pts Only (G,A,W,SO)
Crosby, Wheeler, Bergeron, Forsberg, Connor, Kopitar, E.Lindholm, Pastrnak, DeBrincat, Fiala
Jones, Klingberg, Hamilton, Theodore, Letang
Saros, Shesterkin
Garland, Vrana, Bjorkstrand, Verhaege, Backstrom, Karlsson, Perunovich, Spurgeon, Pulock, Hellebuyck
Logan Shaw will play tonight, all is well!
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Sigh
12 team Yahoo Roto keeper (keep 3)
9 F, 6 D; roster 3 G max
G,A,PPP,SOG,BLKS,HITS - W,SO,SV%,Saves
F: B Tkachuk, Stutzle, Eriksson Ek, Necas, Konecny, Cooley, Boldy, Lehkonen, Tippett
D: Dahlin, Seider, Matheson, Durzi, Addison, Mintyukov
G: Hill, Husso
IR:
Bench: L Hughes, Merzlikins, Terry, Tuch
Habs have a major problem with not knowing what they're doing (including changing their mind on a whim) and it's hurting a lot of players. They did it with McCarron during his call-ups, they did it with Galchenyuk with the center/wing drama and now they're doing the same with Drouin. All three are playing far beneath their potential as a result.
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