What Not To Do
The Ottawa Senators have made some big swing moves with older players Claude Giroux, Alex Debrincat, Vladimir Tarasenko and Linus Ullmark, but none of those players combined with a young core have translated to playoff success.
The Senators have just one first round draft pick in the past three years, and the last one before that was Tyler Boucher. It seems like the Senators tried to jump-start the rebuild and the young core wasn't deep and skilled enough to make a playoff push.
The Buffalo Sabres have basically been so bad for so long that they are really in a second rebuild in a row. There was the whole Jack Eichel era, which ended in disaster as they tried to jumpstart the rebuild to early with acquiring Kane and Bogosian.
Now they are essentially in a brand new rebuild in the era of Dahlin, Power and Thompson.
The Detroit Red Wings have drafted some very good players, like Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider, but lack more high-end talent and depth to get into the playoffs. Lately they have tried to inject older players in like Debrincat, Kane, Petry, Chiarot and Tarasenko, but you can see how well that has gone.
This feels more like a sign of frustration, as the Red Wings have been rebuilding for a long time, and haven't drafted particularly well to build up an impressive cupboard, especially years ago, and will likely be staring many more years of rebuild to follow.
Luckily, the Montreal Canadiens are a step or two above those teams as the team is already deep and have a great number of young players and prospects without trying to speed up the rebuild with too many older players.
Acquisitions like Kirby Dach and Alex Newhook fit the timeline of the rebuild, and Patrik Laine was a buy low player that has so far paid off nicely.
While the Habs are an interesting team this year. They will likely not make the playoffs, and I don't think any major changes should be made in season. But this offseason might be the perfect time to leverage some draft picks to shore up holes in the team, like second line centre.