Still have to ice a competitive team. You can have as many first’s as you like, but if you don’t have seasoned pro’s, who can they learn from? It means a struggle for the youth coming in. It’s easy to comprehend, when you do it your head. It’s different, when you have to keep shareholders, media companies who pay the rights fees, and the Season ticket holders. In reality, it’s not doable as long as corporate interests have the hammer. If they could even do half of what you say, it would be a successful rebuild. If I had a choice between Nylander and Matthews, I move Nylander. You can always get more for Matthews a year from now.
Nah they don’t. Seats are already sold and paid for with a list of thousands to replace anybody that leaves. This idea that the Leafs can’t be bad has already been disproven the last rebuild where they were known to be a trash team for years with the intention of drafting as high as possible. If anybody can afford to absolutely suck and still turn a huge profit, it’s the Leafs.
They can fill the roster with 1-2 year contracts that they offload at the deadline and sprinkle in Marlies to give any of their undiscovered talents a time to prove themselves. They could continue to give Cowan more ice time and even keep Robertson another year or two to see if he can inflate his value so you can trade him down the road for a profit. If anything, a team filled with Marlies, outcasts and rentals would at least give you an honest effort every night even if they do lose in the end.
Literally everything you said about shareholders and media is wrong in this case. The media owns the team. They could easily use that to their advantage to keep the sheep pacified. The shareholders don’t give a flying fuck about year to year revenue (not that it would decrease anyway) in the big picture of investment. They care about long term franchise value. If you buy a house for 1 million dollars, you don’t rely on rent to turn you a profit. The rent keeps the mortgage paid. 10 years down the road, you sell the house for 1.5 million and that’s where the profit comes from. That’s how NHL franchises work. And nothing makes the Leafs more valuable than winning a Stanley Cup.