Ted's Take

A thoughtful analysis, I agree with almost everything written within. This is very well done. The one issue I take with most of the analysis ever done on our rebuild  is that - for the most part - it is very hard to develop a collective goal and a consistent winning culture with a team of basically underachieving veteran players. Had we NOT traded Jaromir Jagr when we did, I believe we would have won more games that season and perhaps NOT qualified for the lottery and not gotten lucky and won the first pick in the draft and then chose Alex Ovechkin. Building a new culture and building from within are under reported and underappreciated nuances as part of our plan. I just didn’t see the collective will to win for one another anymore in our old vet-laden team.

What I wanted to do was create a clean blank slate; a new team based on a strategy of developing and keeping a young core of players together. We collected as many picks and young prospects as we could. We also knew we would be picking high for a few years and needed to draft well. I also believe it is under reported on how unlucky we were in the draft right after the lockout ended. Pittsburgh won that lottery and picked Sidney Crosby. We fell to mid-pack just like we had been picking for years and years. I never understood why and we don’t have a player in the NHL from that first round. Imagine if we had picked high in that draft as well. Where would we be on the rebuild scale?

Thanks Peerless. A great read here.