The question that often arises when a team begins to fall out of its window of contention is, “Should the team rebuild or retool?” Fifteen years ago, most people would have emphatically said ’rebuild,’ and the evidence to support this was overwhelming. The Blackhawks and Penguins had rebuilt their organizations into Stanley Cup champions through top-five draft picks, and the Capitals and Lightning were on course to do the same. The consensus at the time was that becoming a top team required a full-scale teardown and bottoming out for top draft picks before you could rise from the ashes and compete for the Stanley Cup.
Then, something happened in the 2010s: the Maple Leafs, Oilers, and Sabres all tried the “tear-it-down-to-the-studs” approach. They were unable to find much success, and even a team like Tampa Bay took a while to consistently find its playoff footing, despite having several lottery picks in its lineup. There are two schools of thought on this, which all begs the question: is it better to rebuild, or to retool on the fly and try to preserve a winning culture? Defining both terms is essential, so it’s crucial to understand that a rebuild is a complete overhaul of the roster, focusing on developing young talent. A retool involves keeping core players and adding younger, complementary pieces to improve the team quickly.
In the cases of the Sabres and Oilers, their teardowns had profound effects that reverberated throughout the organizations. Buffalo is mired in an NHL-record 14-year playoff absence and doesn’t appear any further along, while it took Edmonton a long time (and Connor McDavid) to shake the stink of nearly a decade in the basement. Both of these teams took the complete rebuild approach, which had largely negative results. The Oilers now have a Cup Final and multiple Conference Final appearances under their belt, but Buffalo has been nothing short of a disaster.
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.
Photo by Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports
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Yes. Capitals are exhibit A. Of course, it depends on who your GM is and the coach he hires.
Absolutely correct. The Blues don’t hire Montgomery, I don’t think they make the playoffs. That plus Armstrong wisely signing Holloway and Broberg from Edmonton and trading for Fowler helped push them over the playoffs line.
and article lists Rasmus Sandin as off season pick up. That was trade deadline deal 2 years ago with TOR for picks from Orlov/Hathaway trade
it literally does not. It says that group of players was acquired over the past few years. Try again
I think it all depends on roster. Chicago and San Jose 100% had to rebuild they had pieces that were decent but needed guys to build around and prospects to add to a bairn system. Where a team like the blues 100% could do a retool as they had trade able guys along with building blocks as well
Yeah who were the hawks going to build around. Debrincat, Jones and hagel? Without picks and prospects. Like those are excellent players but you need a true number number 1 something.
A retool only puts off a rebuild, the pain eventually comes.
Capitals? Blues? Wild?
Wild have been rebuilding since they did the buy outs just were semi competitive the whole time. Blues and caps have shown what a good GM and coach can do with an older team that has good pieces that just needed adjustments but will the caps be good if Ovi isn’t a top 3 player on the team. Now flip are the penguins just a couple pieces away from being a top team? How did the offseason cup champs Nashville do in their retool?
Who did the Wild trade away for picks and prospects since those two buyouts? Most of their roster has been there for the past 3 seasons. And the Caps are loaded with top prospects that they made without having top picks.
As for the Preds, Trotz decided to change horses in the middle of the stream. They went from rebuild to retool with a coach who can’t adjust his strategy to the changing roster.
Mcdounagh requesting a trade to the lightning doomed them. Doesn’t help Nyquist turned back into a pumpkin.
No doubt losing McDonough was a huge lose for the team. He was the actual captain as far as I’m concerned.
It depends on who your GM is. Dubas, no. Patrick/MacLellan, yes.
A lot depends on the organization itself from ownership to management to coaching. An organization does a complete rebuild typically because they primarily have no building blocks in management’s eyes.
However, I think an organization can do a retool that also assists in developing the overall rebuild in the process without having to tear it all down. If an organization gradually brings up young core pieces (they feel) with the current core pieces on the team, this helps the young guys to learn from the veteran core guys which in turn, also keeps the strong culture established that the organization has built on. This also establishes the young core guys to carry the culture forward after learning from the prior core which in essence keeps the team competitive & consistently having the winning culture in place. Granted, this is easier said than done.
Let me see a few of these “retools” win a Stanley Cup and then I might vote “retoool”.
Not quite sure how to classify VGK built on aggressive star additions after the expansion draft. Their situation is a unique outlier.
Otherwise almost (if not) every Cup team in the Cap era was built on a formula of supplementing a core of stars picked near the top of the draft.
Panthers had Barkov, Ekbland, Tkachuk, Bennett, Reinhart (all top 10 picks)
VGK got them differently but they still had Eichel and Pietrangelo (top 5 picks).
Avs had McKinnon, Rantanen, Makar, Kadri, Landeskog (all top 10 picks)
TB had Stamkos, Hedman and Vaz (1-1, 1-2 and a #19 overall).
Blues had Pietrangelo and Schenn (both top 5) and a bit of luck.
Caps had Backstrom, Ovie, Carlson (#4, #1 and a late first).
Pens had Sid and Geno and MAF (all top 2 picks) plus had or traded Jordan Staal (1-2) or Ryan Whitney (1-5).
Hawks had Toews and Kane and Seabrook (#3, #1 and #14 IIRC)
Kings had Doughty, Kopitar and Brown (all top 15 picks).
I know which why I’d go. I love what the Hawks are doing and hope the Pens go full Kyle Davidson after the retool water treading is over. Build it up as much as we can for Sid, but then sell EVERYTHING and build from dust.
Now, there is one thing that might make the retool better than the full rebuild…if the trend of having to hand $8.5 million x 8 to almost every single young player who has a nice year or MIGHT have a nice year so better to pay him now continues or worsens.
Paying their cores who never won as if they won is what has limited TOR and EDM.
You named a lot of players there that weren’t on the team that drafted them when they won the cup. That supports a retool rather than a rebuild, IMO.
That not every single player was drafted by the same team doesn’t change that it’s a rebuild.
Cats traded for Tkachuk using Huberdeau a #3 overall pick. Most (all?) of the others were acquired with the excess assets of a rebuild (Tage Thompson for O’Reilly, for ex.) when the team shifted from tanking to winning.
You can make different moves after you spend time in the lottery for a few years, but no team has won (except again the unique VGK situation) without doing that.
And to your point below, the Oilers (and Sabres..and Wings probably) are abject failures. One other thing that separates good rebuilds from bad rebuilds (besides leadership and culture) is hitting on the mid picks.
Pens hit on Letang and Jake and Matt Murray and others as third rounders. Hawks found Keith, Versteeg, Crawford, Bolland in mid rounds. Bolts found Point in the third, Kucherov in the second.
Off the top of my head, I can’t think of examples of the Oilers or Sabres hitting on those picks in that way. They got their high firsts and not much beyond it. Those rebuilds fail.
I guess my point is that you can acquire elite talent without getting it by drafting in the top 5. You can’t win a cup without having at least some elite guys, so yes every cup winner will have some guys who were drafted highly. The question is can you build a championship core and acquire elite players by drafting consistently outside the top 10?
And secondarily, since neither tanking nor rebuilding is a guarantee of anything, is it better to roll the dice by playing competitive hockey or roll the dice by sucking?
I think you also have to define what constitutes success. Is it Stanley Cup or bust? If so, the Oilers are maybe the biggest rebuilding failure. They got four No. 1 picks, the best player in the world, and haven’t won a cup. I think they’re even further away from a cup now than they were a year ago and are going to be further hamstrung when McDavid gets an extension.
If success means being a perennial contender, I guess the Oilers have succeeded. But you can build a team that will make the playoffs regularly without tanking for 5+ years.
Canucks are a failed retool; Benning regularly traded draft picks to “speed up” the process with horribly mediocre results. Allvin did a better job finding pro-level support but has continued its moving picks – now more firsts – to squeeze a few more wins out. Last year appeared to be a breakthrough but in hindsight flipping a first to rent Lindholm was a big mistake; moving the just-acquired NYR first this season too – MPettey didn’t push the team over the top, put pressure on mgmt to stay the course & not move Boeser, & locked them into another retool, this time anchored by what they’ll acquire in another forced trade (this time Hughes)… Canucks fans are conceding that a cup is not even dreamable.
All of their moves have been awful, just getting excuses for trading Hughes ready.