s e n s i wrote:
it's been pretty fast. buffalo is still in rebuild purgatory. arizona. edmonton is FINALLY reaping the benefits of their rebuild after how many years. they all started "rebuilding" before we did, which essentially started as soon as shanahan took over, which was 2 years ago. to go from bad, to last in the league, to playoffs over the span of 3 drafts (nylander, marner, matthews +++) is a pretty darn fast rebuild.
True, but you really shouldn't ever spend 7 years or so rebuilding the way Edmonton has. To me 3 drafts to rebuild should be standard to at least get to where we did. Unfortunately for Buffalo, they got screwed out of some top picks for the true generational guys.
What I think is most important to getting back to the playoffs for this team is the quality coaching staff. Even before these drafts, we had guys like Kadri, Gardiner, Reilly and Babcock has been working with them prior to the rookies from the Shanahan era coming up. They aren't all perfect but alongside our drafts, we've had a real quality coaching system in place that aligned.