The Rebuild Conundrum, Part I
Jonathan Willis
March 09 2010 09:37AM
Fans of the Edmonton Oilers appear to be remarkably accepting of a rebuild. The examples of franchises it works for (Pittsburgh and Chicago, to name two) are compelling, and it’s easy to look at those teams, envy their success, and decide that following their route to the top is the way to go.
It’s easy to forget that it doesn’t always work out, because even the greatest superstars need a team around them.
(Side note: That’s one of the reasons I get so angry when I hear some generic hockey commentator go on and on about how Player X won a Stanley Cup but Player Y hasn’t and thus Player X is the better player. I know it’s all about winning, but I’ve had it beat into my head since I first put on a pair of skates that it’s a team sport, and that you win or lose as a team. Even the greatest player can’t win without a team around him – as the divorce between Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers should have proved; the team won post-Gretzky, but Gretzky never won post-Oilers.)
Example One: Atlanta
The Atlanta Thrashers entered the NHL as a fairly typical expansion team: formed of the castoffs from other clubs, and just really, really bad. Sadly, a decade into existence, things haven’t changed all that much.
Between 1999 and 2002, the Thrashers picked one of the top two players available at the draft each and every year – that’s four lottery pick players, picks which were immediately followed by two top-10 selections. In 1999, they had the bad luck of running into a weak draft, and took Patrik Stefan. Yes, that Patrik Stefan:
They lucked out in 2000, where in a fit of well, let’s call it “genius”, Mike Milbury decided he wanted Rick DiPietro first overall because he liked him better than Roberto Luongo. This left Dany Heatley to the Thrashers, who snapped him up with the second pick. They took Rocket Richard winner Ilya Kovalchuk first overall in 2001, and in 2002 pegged Kari Lehtonen as their goalie of the future and took him with the second overall pick.
Stefan turned into a depth player, although it’s hard to blame Atlanta for that (aside from the Sedin twins and Martin Havlat, who was picked 28th, the first round of the 1999 Draft bears a striking resemblance to the world inhabited by Charlton Heston in Omega Man: lots of bodies, not much life.
(And yes, that analogy was only an excuse to post the above video, and yes again, I Am Legend was a remake.)
Kari Lehtonen had no issues with talent, but unfortunately he is held together entirely with bailing twine and duct tape. Occasionally he manages to beat the odds and string together 50 games in a season (he’s done it twice!) but for the most part he plays well for half a season (give or take) and then spends the rest of the year on injured reserve. Between he and Stefan, fully 50% of Atlanta’s lottery picks failed to have any significant, lasting impact with the team that drafted them.
The other two selections, however, have been gold. Ilya Kovalchuk hit the 50-goal plateau twice in Atlanta and then the 40-goal mark on three other occasions, contributing well over 300 goals in less than 600 career games in Atlanta. Dany Heatley scored 40 goals just once before crashing his car (resulting in the death of teammate Dan Snyder), but the Thrashers were still able to turn him into Marian Hossa, who scored 92 and 100 points in his two full seasons with Atlanta.
Unfortunately, Don Waddell was never able to construct a team around them, and now both are gone; Hossa sent away for some magic beans (Oilers fans know all about magic beans) and Kovalchuk was dealt before the Olympic break for Johnny Oduya and a grab-bag of low-value assets.
The Thrashers are now more or less starless, and have made two picks in the top five over the past two seasons. The rebuilding effort, which never really stopped, begins anew.
Example Two: The Islanders
“Mad” Mike Milbury has a new career now, as a television analyst. But despite his remarkable work from the platforms provided by NBC and Hockey Night in Canada, from which he fights against the ‘pansification’ of the game and speaks out in favour of any number of idiotic things, he isn’t most famous for that. No, Milbury’s claim to fame stems from a decade at the helm of the New York Islanders, a franchise he helped enshrine as a laughingstock.
Everybody loved Mike; he gave the press some incredibly memorable quotes (on Zigmund Palffy’s agent, Paul Kraus: "It's too bad he lives in the city. He's depriving some small village of a pretty good idiot.") and he gave his fellow general managers some pretty good players. He also had some nice draft picks to work with.
Between 1995 and 2001, the Islanders had a lottery selection eight times in seven drafts, and had three other top-10 picks as well. Wade Redden was flipped for Bryan Berard, who was subsequently sent to Toronto in exchange for Felix Potvin. Potvin won seven games before getting moved to Vancouver. J-P Dumont went third overall, but never played in the NHL for the Islanders; he was sent to Chicago with a fifth round draft pick for Dmitri Nabokov, who played 30 NHL games before returning to Russia, where he’s been a bit player.
There’s a theme here, as Milbury simply refused to hang on to his picks. Roberto Luongo was shipped away (along with Olli Jokinen, another top-five pick acquired by the Islanders) in one of the worst trades in NHL history. Eric Brewer was sent away for Roman Hamrlik. Tim Connolly and Taylor Pyatt were packaged together for Mike Peca. Raffi Torres was sent away in exchange for Janne Niinimaa. Meanwhile, Jason Spezza didn’t even get a chance to be selected by the Islanders; Milbury sent him away (and tossed in Zdeno Chara for good measure) to Ottawa for Alexei Yashin. All told, nine top-10 picks (five of them lottery selections) were moved by Milbury for an assortment of veterans who either disappointed or were unable to stem the franchise’s bleeding.
As for the other two picks, only one remains an Islander: injury-prone goalie Rick DiPietro, who is signed until judgment day. The other player (Michael Rupp) was taken far too high based on his draft year performance and was never signed. He re-entered the draft and went to New Jersey in the third round, two years later.
And That’s Not All…
There are plenty of other examples too, though I probably don’t need to go into detail. The Coles notes edition:
Columbus - There’s a reason Doug MacLean has three different Twitter parody accounts (my favourite is this one) and it isn’t solely on account of his unique personality. With MacLean in charge, the Blue Jackets picked in the top-10 for nine consecutive seasons, making three lottery picks over that span. Aside from Rick Nash, they have one top-four defenceman (Rostislav Klesla) and a trio of prospects left to show for it. After making one playoff appearance under new G.M. Scott Howson, they’re bound for another high pick this summer.
Florida - With three lottery selections and one top-10 pick between 2001 and 2004, the Panthers have still been unable to rise to the top of the risible Southeast Division. Their best pick (Jay Bouwmeester) was sent away for very little in the way of return, and while Stephen Weiss and Nathan Horton are good players the team has never had enough of a supporting cast to put in a post-season appearance.
The point to all of this is that just getting high-end draft picks isn’t enough. Darren Dreger goes on about how the Oilers have decided they can’t win without acquiring a superstar, and while it isn’t Dreger’s fault those sorts of statements make my blood boil. I recognize that it’s important to have impact players, but it’s never been that simple. The pre-lockout Oilers were a team worth watching, a strong collection of two-way players augmented by cheap young stars (until those stars got expensive and had to be dealt away for Anson Carter or Jochen Hecht, and the cycle could begin once more). Had those teams been able to hang on to stars, they could have competed because they were deep and multi-dimensional.
The draft picks are a good start, but whoever the Oilers end up picking is going to need a supporting cast as well.
There's always risk when you build through the draft. We're talking about 17 year olds after all. And especially so if you don't have patience, and you don't put your prospects in a position to succeed.
It's definitely something to think about when we have Eberle, MPS, and Hall (or Seguin) all trying to make the team this fall. What would a successful franchise do with the player? What about the Islanders?
good read Jon, I vaguely remember those Oiler teams that fought Dallas and Colorado in the playoffs year after year, I blame management for getting rid of Mike Grier. Yes Mike Grier, great defensive grinder who is going to win a cup with the Buffalo's.
Ottawa is also a good example of good scouting, they built for most of the 90's and they were a pretty good team, a lot of todays franchise players came from that team.
Which players do you guys and gals believe will be gone most likely by the start of the next season. Hey also who is the projected number 1 player for next years draft? I am hearing this Larsson guy. Anyways hope you all have a great day.
Good read JW. This article is only PART 1!!!1!
*starts repeatedly hitting refresh waiting for part two*
Also this article was very good too. Hopefully our rebuild does work out or we become the Toronto Maple Leafs of the West!! The Horror! The Horror! KHANNNN!!
I guess my feelings on finishing this badly are this: If you're gonna have a rotten season, you might as well get something out of it.
You're absolutely right, Jonathan. The Oilers are not only going to have to make sure they don't screw up the first (or second or third) overall pick this June, they're going to have to draft or acquire a supporting cast, too.
The Quebec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche are the best example of this. You might be planning to write about them in Part II, but they're a team that did pretty well with its first-rounders in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As memory serves, I thinked they gassed their first-rounder in 1988 (Daniel Dore), but otherwise drafted Joe Sakic (15th, 1987), Mats Sundin (1st, 1989), Owen Nolan (1st, 1990), and Lindros, whom they drafted first in 1991 and eventually flipped into Forsberg and Ricci. But they also managed to draft guys like Adam Foote and Curtis Lechyshen (sp?) along the way.
Here's to hoping the Oilers aren't as bad as long as the Nords were.
this is very true.
in my opinion, shipping off brodziak, grebeshkov, etc is bad for the build. they will be good players when we'll be needing good players to fill this thing out.
What do all four of those teams have in common other then not rebuilding properly? No money.
Now if we go through the rebuild and have results like them, then every single person should be fired.
@Minister Towel Boy:
Part II will go up tomorrow or the next day some time. All I'll say about it is that if I were subtitling it I'd call it "Blood."
I honestly think that Eberle and MPS should start the year in the "A"
Hall or Seguin cannot because of their age. Do they stay in Jr for another year? We need to have another terrible year and get a lottery pick next draft as well.
From the past 4 or 5 years the 'top picks' have been generally can't miss. I hope that trend continues this year. Some teams have turned it around in a a season like Colorado or even PHX this season. But the money was spent on some nice depth & character players. We will find out in June & July which direction the Oilers are going to go. If they throw money around, I guess they are looking for the 1 year turn around. If they stay committed to whatever the plan is (hopefully building a team) it will probably be Chicago-ish.
It doesn't matter if you sign a Taylor Hall and he lives up to the hype. If you don't have a bottom six that can play at or above water level then your team is going to lose. If you don't have capable 'tending that can play more than half a season each, you will not go far (see Flames, Calgary).
As you said, JW, it is a team sport and GM's who forget this build crappy ones (see Tambellini, Steve).
Brodziak really should be very easily replaceable. Grebs on the other hand was a move that needed to be done. Going with the same 4 offesnive d-men just wasn't working. It's not like Gilbert and Whitney are decent supporting cast on the backend.
@ Ogden Brother Jr.:
I'm really not convinced that those defencemen were the problem; I think moving one in favour of a (capable) stay-at-home guy might have been the way to go but given that this is a rebuild there's no way I would have picked Grebeshkov for the role.
I think the struggles of those four defencemen this season have been a mix of redundant skillsets, struggles by the rest of the team (both up front and in net) and some bizarre coaching decisions by Quinn and Renney.
In any case, change for the sake of change is not something I'd be advocating.
(And yes, that analogy was only an excuse to post the above video [of Omega Man], and yes again, I Am Legend was a remake.)
Omega Man was also a remake of 'The Last Man on Earth' with Vincent Price (1964). Also, good read.
My other question is our supporting cast all that bad? Seems like that is what our team is, a supporting cast with no main cast to take this team to the next level. Granted there is some problems with grit in the bottom 6 and defense, but that really shouldn't be hard to come by.
The change to me is Tambs trying to make this team his team and I don't think Grebs and Lubo were apart of his future plans. Again to me I don't just throw my arms up and be pissed off that all he did was make a few moves, we need time.
TonyDanzaPervo wrote:
I didn't know that - is it worth checking out? I liked both Legend and Omega Man, albeit for different reasons.
@ Ogden Brother Jr.:
Completely disagree. Leaving aside what this team lacks (capable penalty-killers, grit that can play hockey, healthy veterans) there are a lot of players who are liabilities at this point(Jacques, Moreau, Strudwick, Chorney), inconsistent (Nilsson, Cogliano) or hurt all the time (Pouliot, Pisani, again Moreau, agian Jacques).
The bottom end of this roster is ugly, and the AHL depth is uglier still.
The top 3 reasons why this is a great article:
3. It makes Oiler management seem a lot less incompetent.
2. The Doug MacLean fake Twitter account is hilarious, thanks for sharing.
1. I love anything written or spoken that outlines Mike Milbury's complete ineptitude. I occasionally find him mildly amusing on HNIC but I can't imagine ANYONE taking him seriously based on his track record. WORST GM in the history of sports.
@Jonathan Willis
How hard is it to fix that bottom end of the roster? I somehow think we could sign a whole fourth line of penalty killers for less then 3mil and fix that problem. Bottom end talent is easy to come by it's that top end talent that is hard to come by.
although paajarvi.com he says he's working hard to get here and feels NHL>KHL I dunno if we will see MPS here, hope so because his name is helping me study Macroeconomics! MPS = Marginal Propensity to save
@ Ogden Brother Jr.:
If bottom-end talent is so easy to come by, why didn't Steve Tambellini fix it in the off-season?
I see two possible answers:
a) Bottom end talent isn't easy to come by.
b) The Oilers management is too stupid to realize they need to devote some attention to fixing the bottom end of the roster.
Personally, I lean towards (b). Either way, the bottom line is that for the Oilers, fixing the depth on the roster isn't something we should assume they'll just be able to do.
@Jonathan Willis
Agreed - but there isn't much out there for free agents this summer. Assuming that we are trying to get younger, we would want players younger than 30. Maybe we will go the same direction Toronto did last season & try to sign some undrafted college seniors.
Adam Burrish (CHG) would be the only center man who kills penalties & is under 30 but is coming off a knee injury & isn't good on face-offs.
From the Journal about Grebeshkov:
The former Oilers defenceman got hit in the groin with a shot during the Predators' 4-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday. The blue-liner reportedly needed emergency surgery on one of his testicles after the game.
Poor guy can't escape the Oilers injury curse even in Nashville.
Considering how many UFA's there were and how many sat around until late summer I would think that B is the answer.
I agree with you that we shouldn't assume they will fix it, but that is why I said if once the rebuild is done and we are still no where then everyone should be fired for incompetence.
Is there really a reason to fix the bottom end if the plan is to rebuild for a few years? We might as well just add a guy or two to help teach our younger players and hope that we can develop a Stoll and a Greene.
Again I don't know what the plan is and it could be possible that we are only going to try a one year rebuild.
Everything willis writes usually has something negative in it. Where is the hope?
Why does it have to be someone under 30? Why can't it be someone to be brought in that is only a short-term fix? I could be wrong but I don't think there has been a team that has iced an all under 30 roster in the past bunch of years.
Interesting note on the Islanders trading Luongo and Jokinen: They made the trade, as mentioned, because they thought DiPietro was going to be better than Luongo. They then drafted DiPietro rather than Heatley (or Gaborik, who went third)and traded Luongo and Jokinen for Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha, making the final tally for that decision Jokinen, Heatley, and Luongo for Kvasha, Parrish and DiPietro. It's not often that you see a six player deal where the three best players all go in the opposite direction. It was only one year later that he made the also mentioned Spezza and Chara (and Bill Muckalt, just for good measure) deal for Yashin. This was in 2001, and Milbury managed to hold down the exact same job until 2006.
@Ogden Brother Jr. - Team Lynda Steele
Fair enough. But we have spent a lot of money on our bottom 6 in the past few years. I guess it depends on what sort of a rebuild it is. Free agents above 30 look even worse than the guys under 30. Glen Metropolit, Stephan Yelle or a John Madden? They are all over 35.
It totally depends on the direction these guys are steering the ship. I would rather build a team, so if most of the key players are under 30, we should try to find players to slot into the bottom 6 that are close in age.
That is gross.
@ jonathan
Should the Oil then go through the draft for a D-man
@ Red Deerian Convert:
The same place it was when they signed Khabiulin this summer.
I don't see anything wrong with signing a guy over 30, I wouldn't be signing 4-5 guys in their thrities but one or two can't hurt. We have spent lots in our bottom 6 as of late, but that has been mostly money that hasn't been spent properly.
I was actually doing similar research on things outlined in JW's article and found something else interesting.
It's no mistake Pittsburgh and Tampa have won Stanley Cups. If you take a look at their draft histories over the last 10 years, they've drafted rather well and have either been in the top 10 picks or been within reach.
Thats why the Oilers who have been notoriously bad at the draft, need the upcoming draft to be a very, very good one. If ever there was a year where they needed a draft to rebuild, it's this one. I don't know how many picks they have in total, but securing a top 2 should be of the utmost importance for the longevity of the franchise.
Great Read JW.
So if I understand you correctly your message is:
"OK Oilers fans - before you start feeling too good about all these losses and being in last place, this might not get you any further ahead and it could get worse."
*head down on desk and sobbing*
So, JW, how exactly was Dreger's statement wrong? Why is the belief by the organization that the team needs a superstar incorrect? Yes, they need a supporting cast, that's a given...but no team wins without an elite skater or two, it just doesn't happen.
I know the Oilers have screwed the pooch with putting together a solid lineup for several seasons now. With that, however, they have also failed to bring in truly elite talent to play on the 1st line.
@ The Real Scuba Steve:
I'm not sure if you mean via trade or via selection; selection-wise I lean towards Seguin, and as for trades I don't think it matters - next year's probably a write-off too.
Have we really been that bad lately at drafting? It sure seems everyone is so happy that we got such and such, then in 5 years the guy is selling vehicles. I question if development is the problem.
@ GSC:
It isn't Dreger, it's what that statement tells me about the Oilers mindset.
They've gone for the big fish every year: Heatley, Hossa, Jagr, Vanek, and struck out every year.
It's cost them points because they've been so busy with an all or nothing approach that they've failed to address other areas of need.
I'm scared they're looking at this as a magic bullet, when the reality is that there isn't a magic bullet.
Excellent article JW, that is exactly why I hope managment picks up 3/4 quality role players this summer.
We had a perfect storm this year, fine, lets use it to get (hopefully) a franchise player... but theirs no reason to go through this for another 2-3 years.
Speaking from recent experience, there is nothing comfortable about any kind of surgery on your testicles.
Better stock up on frozen vegetables Grebby! I would recommend peas or corn over mixed veggies, to avoid the sharp corners and edges.
When did the Oil pull out of the Heatley trade? Even if they were there tell Sept 12, there was still Betts, Moore, Malhotra, Seidenberg, Neidermayer, Bouillon, and some others that could've helped our situation.
I really don't think the all or nothing approach is what is happening as much as it was the thought of building from within.
@ Ogden Brother Jr.:
Or the belief that all those little pieces don't really matter, it's the big piece that does.
As for building from within, the only guy who fit the role we're discussing is Kyle Brodziak, and he was moved.
I don't think there's ever been a team in NHL history that's been able to quantify how long a rebuild takes - certainly not before it's happened.
I don't think it's possible to really guess how good/bad the Oilers are going to be in one, three or five years because, more often than not, these "rebuilds" either come together or not.
Think about it: Back in the mid-1990s, when the Oilers were horrible, I don't ever remember Glen Sather talking about a one- or two-year rebuild. They just sort of drifted along for a couple of bad years, traded away Tikkanen and MacT for Weight and Marchant in separate deals, drafted Arnott, traded for Cujo and Greir and, just like that, they were rebuilt.
I don't ever remember there being a "plan" or even a "declaration" that the "rebuild" was "over."
Message: Rebuilds are an inexact science.
I don't think it would be a wise choice to have Hall or Seguin start in the A. First overalls usually make the jump right away, no?
For be it for anyone to defend Mad Mike, but it's not unreasonable to assume that he was simply a conduit for the decisions of his owner, Charles Wang. Milbury is such a pro-owner guy that he would not have questioned any directive from Wang, regardless of how idiotic it might be. I think that Mad Mike's legacy isn't that he was responsible for tremendously bad trades, it's that he didn't stop Wang from making them because he was and is such a sycophant.
@ magisterrex:
Of course, that doesn't explain 1996-2000, when Wang wasn't involved.
The other point, one I suppose I should have made above, is that Kevin Lowe (and for that matter Glen Sather) were far better managers when they had to bring in cheap players and couldn't afford superstars. Not only that, but their teams were better teams.
There's a lesson there, somewhere.