If you’re a Penguins fan, you know the inevitable looms just ahead and around the corner. Eventually, the Pens are going to tear down the last vestiges of their Stanley Cup champions and begin a rebuild in earnest.
The once-mighty Red Wings succumbed to the forces of Father Time. So have the equally proud Blackhawks. Like our Pens, three-time Cup winners in the new millennium.
The plan in a nutshell? A reverse-Rutherford, if you will. Trade off any remaining veteran talent for draft capital, in the process hopefully snagging some lottery picks and if you’re real lucky, a budding franchise player (see McKenna, Gavin).
It’s a dynamic that’s played out twice before in our storied history. In the early 1980s, then-GM Eddie Johnston boldly tore a fading veteran team that in some ways reminds me of this one down to the floorboards in order to draft franchise savior Mario Lemieux.
Twenty years later, Craig Patrick and chief scout Greg Malone did yeoman’s work after executing a similar sell-off. In relatively short order they drafted Colby Armstrong, Marc-André Fleury, Alex Goligoski, Tyler Kennedy, Kris Letang, Ryan Malone, Brooks Orpik, Rob Scuderi and Max Talbot, along with a couple of guys named Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Young guns who would form the heart-and-soul of our champions-to-be.
Does that mean building through the draft guarantees future success?
The short answer, surprisingly, is no.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge proponent of the draft. There’s enormous value in having a bunch of hungry (and affordable) kids progressing through the ranks, each with the team’s logo virtually tattooed over their hearts. The esprit de corps of those early Crosby-era teams was off the charts.
Still, a quick glance around the league tells me that building through the draft may not be enough. The Blackhawks, Blue Jackets, Canadiens, Ducks, Flyers, Red Wings, Sabres, Senators…virtually a third of the league…are all in the throes of lengthy rebuilds. Most if not all of those teams have accumulated gobs of young talent. Yet they’ve struggled to turn the corner.
Once a model franchise that qualified for the playoffs 25 consecutive seasons, the Red Wings have missed the playoffs eight seasons running, with no apparent end to their futility skein in sight. Indeed, the much-ballyhooed “Yzerplan” has gone sideways to such an extent that GM Steve Yzerman has focused on adding a veteran presence to his roster over the past couple of seasons, with decidedly tepid results.
The Blackhawks, who’ve missed the postseason six out of seven seasons, appear to be following suit.
Heck, the Pens experienced the same back in the ‘80s. Even with arguably the greatest player of all-time serving as a cornerstone, not to mention talented first-rounders like Craig Simpson, Doug Bodger and Zarley Zalapski, we missed the playoffs in each of Mario’s first four seasons. It was only after Johnston swung a blockbuster deal with the Oilers and landed Norris Trophy winner Paul Coffey that the team began to win.
Need more proof that building through the draft isn’t the be-all, end-all? The Panthers won the Cup last season with a shocking dearth of home-grown talent. Indeed, most of their key players…including Sam Reinhart, Matt Tkachuk, Sam Bennett and Sergei Bobrovsky…were gleaned from other clubs.
Teams that have reloaded the fastest, the Bruins, Rangers and Kings for example, seem to do so by retooling on the fly while blending veteran talent with youth.
The Capitals, pretty much in the same (sinking) boat as our Pens a couple of years ago, have done the same. After aggressively procuring talent over the summer, they’re miles ahead of us on the turnaround road.
Rebuild or retool?
It remains to be seen which direction the Pens will ultimately choose under Kyle Dubas. Actually, with our venerated core entering the twilight of their distinguished careers and a prospect pipeline that’s improving but still on the thin side, the choice is likely being made for him.
It could be a long (long) time before our Pens are good again.
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Hey Rick,
First off Rick consider this, the Capitals originally were supposed to have offered the Pittsburgh the draft pick that became Ovechkin for Jagr but the Pens wanted immediate return and only got Beech, Sivek, and Lupaschuk. Hmmm.......
So, the Pens could have drafted both Ovie and Geno, owning the top 2 picks that year.
The next year they took Crosby.
Now they would have had Crosby, Geno, and Ovie.
The following year they took Staal with the 2nd pick and the Hawks took Jonathan Toews.
Now think about it, what if our black and gold would have had Crosby, Malkin, Ovechkin, and Toews for that brief time that they were all on ELCs. How electric would that have been? Were would there stats be now, feeding off one another?
Now back to your post, perhaps the biggest problem here that leads to your premise of not needing to build through the draft is the whole FA issue. Forwards do not hit their prime until they are about 22 and it only lasts until they reach about 27. Defensemen do not hit their prime until they are about 27 - lasting until about 32. Goalies used to be similar to Defensemen but I am now wondering if that is about to change with the combination of rules favoring a serious increase in offense and such a leap in equipment technology for forwards.
The point of all of this is that by the time players are reaching their prime, many are able to jump from the team who drafted them - once again calling attention to just how special Crosby, Malkin, and Letang are (and MAF would have been if JR hadn't been so lazy). We have been seriously blessed by our core.
Amen, my friend, to how seriously we've been blessed by our core. We've had the extreme good fortune to watch some amazing hockey over the past 20 years...actually make that 40+ years going back to the Mario era.
Most teams and fanbases aren't anywhere near as fortunate.
That's what's so sad about watching the team fade out. However, as in all things, we need to take the good with the bad and move toward the next chapter...
Rick