Has a retool become more effective than a rebuild for NHL teams?

The Sabres have been in a never-ending rebuild since 2012 and haven’t won a playoff series since 2007. The lack of success has created a culture of losing in Buffalo that has undoubtedly impacted the organization from top to bottom. The Sabres have undergone a series of rebuilds and have selected in the top 10 a total of 10 times since 2013, and are poised to do so again this year.

Now, what have they received for those picks? They do have Rasmus Dahlin, who is a terrific building block, and they drafted Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart with second overall picks in back-to-back seasons. They’ve both gone on to win Stanley Cups in other organizations. However, the problem for the Sabres is that both players became winners in the cities to which they were traded, and Buffalo continued its tradition of losing. Now, you can’t put all the blame on a culture, but you can go back nearly a decade to look at how the Sabres and Oilers were both trying to shake their culture of losing, even then. The Oilers eventually did, reaching the Stanley Cup Final last season. However, it took the best player in the world and another top-five player to do so.

The Oilers took a long time to turn the corner after having incredible draft luck through the 2010s. They drafted in the top four six times between 2010 and 2016, including four first overall picks. All those top picks didn’t lead to immediate success for the Oilers, who took nearly a decade to find any postseason success and did so without many of those above top four picks.

Many recent examples can be cited of teams that have undergone a complete rebuild and struggled to emerge for various reasons. The Senators have only returned to the playoffs this season for the first time since 2017 despite having several top picks, including two top-five picks in one draft. The Utah Hockey Club has also struggled to establish a winning culture, as have the Flyers, who underwent a rebuild in the mid-2010s and are currently experiencing another one.

Losing culture aside, another significant issue for any team looking to undergo a full-scale teardown is that the rules surrounding the NHL Draft Lottery have changed since Edmonton won many top picks, making it more difficult for the NHL’s worst team to retain the first overall draft pick. The rules also stipulated that no team could advance in the draft order by winning a lottery draw more than twice in five years.

There are many reasons why a team might opt for a retool over a complete rebuild. Indeed, market pressures play into it, as evidenced by the Rangers, who quickly shifted from a rebuild to a retool. Ticket sales, corporate sponsorship, ratings, time, and money will always be factors. However, maintaining a team’s culture can be of the utmost importance if a team hopes to get back to winning as soon as possible. Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas expressed this sentiment earlier this year, and it makes sense, particularly in Pittsburgh, where Sidney Crosby has created an expectation of excellence and remains one of the top 10 players in the world.

Rebuilds take a long time, require strong leadership, and rely heavily on luck. You have to hope that your top picks come at a time when the top prospect is a Crosby or McDavid and not a Nail Yakupov, and you have to hope that the player development that you have in place will maximize your prospects’ ability.

To find recent examples of success with a retool, there are numerous instances where this approach has been practical. A rundown of NHL teams currently in the playoffs reveals that many teams have utilized the retool strategy quite effectively. There are no better examples than the top two teams in the NHL this season, the Jets and the Capitals.

The Jets were at a crossroads a few years ago and opted to move on from Pierre-Luc Dubois and Blake Wheeler while extending the contracts of Mark Scheifele and Connor Hellebuyck and retooling their lineup. The Dubois trade was a massive win as Winnipeg could plug Alex Iafallo and Gabriel Vilardi into their lineup, and eventually, they added Nino Niederreiter via trade. The Andrew Copp trade was another solid piece of business that landed Winnipeg a solid depth piece in Morgan Barron and a few draft picks that turned into good prospects. For the most part, the Jets tinkered around the edges of their roster, identifying the core players they wanted to keep, all of which fit the definition of a retool.

The Capitals entered a retool after losing in the first round of the 2022 playoffs. Washington had an aging Stanley Cup-winning core but couldn’t rebuild with Alex Ovechkin still playing at a high level, so they opted to retool. They missed the playoffs in 2023 and barely snuck in last season. But this year, they were a powerhouse after acquiring Dubois, Dylan Strome, Andrew Mangiapane, Rasmus Sandin, Jakob Chychrun, and Logan Thompson over the last few years. The Capitals were able to add this group to their veteran core and supplement it with young, emerging players such as Connor McMichael, Aliaksei Protas, Ivan Miroshnichenko, Hendrix Lapierre, and Ryan Leonard.

This list could continue with St. Louis, Montreal, Los Angeles, and Minnesota, all teams that have undergone varying degrees of retooling, resulting in differing outcomes. A few teams that missed this year’s playoffs have expressed interest in a retool, including Pittsburgh and the Nashville Predators. Both teams have veteran stars on big-money deals and will be looking to insulate them with a solid supporting cast sooner rather than later. It should be interesting to see if the retool becomes the preferred method of building a winner, especially with San Jose and Chicago preparing to exit very long rebuilds.

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