Strangelove wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 4:00 pm
mr perfect wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 12:57 pm
Can you or anyone else here give me some examples where a perennial rebuilding/non playoff team traded their first rounder for a veteran player not named Gretzky and benefitted long term?
Can you give some examples of a perennial rebuilding/non playoff team trading their first rounder for a veteran player
... and
not benefiting long term?
To Strangelove -- Islanders, Ryan Smyth, 2007. Now, as it turns out, that First Rounder and the other two players that went to Edmonton didn't amount to anything. But the Islanders at the time were a perennial bubble team or worse. And they followed the trade by several more years of futility, missing the playoffs 6 of 7 years before doing to again by trading a first and a second for Vanek after making the playoffs one year and thinking they were on to something. They traded Vanek at the deadline. This time, though, losing the first for Vanek didn't hurt the Islanders, as they've made the playoffs 3 of the past 5 years and have the pieces to make things work. [Curiously, the Islanders' 2015 pick was traded by the Sabres, a regular non-contender, to Ottawa for Robin Lehner. Lehner would go on to struggle in Buffalo only to sign a new deal in 2018 and look all-world for...the Islanders]. The pick was Colin White, who is decent now and I think will be an effective player.
Phil Kessel is probably another classic example. The leaves gave up two firsts for him (which became Seguin and Hamilton....) and Kessel was only able to get them into the playoffs once. Arguably it set the leaves development back so far that they were able to snag Nylander, Marner, and Matthews in consecutive drafts.... See, Blob, trading away a first is a jump start on the next rebuild!
And yet Mr. Perfect isn't correct entirely.
When the Kings traded for Dustin Penner, giving Edmonton their first and more, they had been on the outside looking in to the playoffs or like 5 years out of 6. In Penner's two and a half seasons in Los Angeles, the Kings won the Cup and made it to the conference finals. Now Penner himself Hoovered in LA. But that's beside the point. The trade didn't tube LA.
But Mr Perfect, your question implies that moving the first is a disaster and holding on to them isn't. That's simply not true either. There have been plenty of teams not to move a first and find themselves as bubble-and-below teams. Like the Sabres, who while trading a first for Lehner, have had a first every season since 2008 (they've had 16 firsts in the 12 drafts including 2008). Florida didn't make the playoffs in the 00's -- did they ever deal a first. How about the Coyotes. It seems that since that original Jets core dissipated and they took on the red and white color scheme, they've been anywhere from doormat to bubble (they've made the playoffs 3 of the past 16 seasons -- all three appearances were in consecutive seasons). In the 11 drafts between 2006 and 2016 (players now between 21 and 31), the Coyotes had
17 first round picks. They've missed a ton, of course, but every team does. One might argue they've been too antsy with development (trading recent first rounders Perlini, Strome, and Domi as examples), but thi only serves to show that having picks is only one part of the overall equation.
Playing counterfactuals isn't exactly fair, but c'mon, to evaluate whether teams can have success trading a first rounder during a rebuild then you have to evaluate the opportunity costs of not doing so. You have to ask what rebuilders stayed in a rebuild/bubble cycle because they refused to add the supplemental piece that would make them a solid playoff team. So lets look at the disaster that is the Edmonton Oilers. Would the Oilers, for example, have been better off dealing their #1 overall in 2012 or their first rounder in 2013 for some defense or goaltending? Might they have said, hey, RNH, Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle, Sam Gagner (remember, he was pretty good once), that's a really good crop of kids to build around. Maybe we could use some help. Do we really need Yakopov? Darnell Nurse? Remember, this is a time period where Cory Schneider and Bobby Lu were available. When Bobrovsky was snagged by Columbus and Bishop by Tampa. When Brent Burns went to San Jose. Edmonton could have (and should have) pulled the trigger when the kids were making an impact but were forward heavy.
In an ideal world, you would rotate from one core to the next, spending on homegrown-would-otherwise-be-UFAs or RFAs on bridges or deals cutting into FA, maybe a UFA and getting contributions from one or two on ELCs, and rounding out the team with serviceable players. Those ELCs become the next group, and recycle. But when you don't have enough of contributing vets but do have the ELCs, you have either wait until those ELCs become the next group or you can supplement that next group now. JB is doing the latter -- probably out of a desire for self-preservation, but it isn't objectively a terrible idea.