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Making the Transition from Rebuilding to Contending
by Doran Libin
At the end of the 2006-07 season, the Atlanta Thrashers acquired Keith Tkachuk and Alexei Zhitnik in
order to make themselves contenders. In doing so, The Thrashers gave up a promising young
defenseman in Braydon Coburn for Zhitnik, while their 18 game rental of Keith Tkachuk cost them Glen
Metropolit, a first and third round pick in 2007 and a second in 2008. Tkachuk contributed nearly a point
per game for the Thrashers and returned to the Blues the next season. Zhitnik went on to tally 22 points
over the next 83 games before leaving for the KHL before the 2008-09 season, while Coburn has become
a staple on the Flyers blueline. The Thrashers ended up losing in the first round that year in four games
and did not have another winning season before they moved to Winnipeg. It can be argued that this
failed transition went on to cost them Ilya Kovalchuk after the 2009-10 season.
The Thrashers had a strong 2006-07 season but given what
happened the following seasons it really begs the question as to how
well they evaluated their team and the state of their organization. The
following year Kari Lehtonen got injured, and regressed a little, Tkachuk
left as a rental, Marian Hossa missed 20 games, and the team ended up
with little scoring punch outside of Ilya Kovalchuk. The premature push
the Thrashers made to become contenders resulted in a return to
another five years of struggling and rebuilding. Now, as the Jets, the
franchise seems to be taking a more measured approached to
rebuilding and it will be intriguing to see how they approach this
transition the second time around.
Many fantasy hockey teams face the same dilemma when trying to make the leap from
rebuilding to contending. Timing and price play such a huge role in this decision, and as the example of
the Thrashers shows, that if it goes astray it can reset a rebuild or leave a team mired in mediocrity.
Rebuilding is often a long and painful experience that is made all the worse
when it becomes a constant. To avoid being relegated to a constant rebuild, or
to the purgatory that is the middle, the process of a realistic evaluation of three
factors related to the rebuilding team is immensely important. The first factor is
an evaluation of the team in question, both coming off last season and looking
forward. Second, evaluate the state of the rest of the league. Finally, an analysis
of what needs to be added to the team in order to become a contender and it is
imperative to follow the advice of Timothy Oliphant, in The Girl Next Door, and
ask whether “the juice is worth the squeeze?”
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