If you ask the league's foremost expert on expansion, a jolly old builder by the name of William A. Torrey, a lot of variables go into answering the question of how to build a team and when winning should be expected.

"I've had the pleasure of working for three different expansion teams," said Torrey, 66, the president of the Florida Panthers and past management architect of the Oakland Seals and New York Islanders. "Your strategy of building those teams depends on a lot of things. What's the market like? What's the ownership's commitment? And the obvious factors of how involved the media and the fans get. But it always gets down the same issues: You can build early or you can build slowly. The way we built the Panthers was completely different from the way the Islanders were built."

Torrey said the feeling in South Florida in 1993 was to "be as competitive on the ice as soon as we could."

	John Vanbiesbrouck was key to the Panthers reaching the finals in '96.

They had to spark interest in a community which, unlike their young cross-state rivals by the Bay, didn't have as many transient residents hailing from the Northeast. They also had an owner in Wayne Huizenga whose main priority was to raise interest to the point of justifying a funding plan for a new arena that would literally rise out of the Everglades.

"When I was with the Islanders, we were thrown into a division that included the Flyers, Rangers, Bruins and Canadiens," Torrey said. "Back then, they were all powerful teams, and I knew we weren't going to win for a good three or four years, anyway. So I put all of our energies into building through the draft. But with the Panthers, there was more pressure to be competitive. We had a chance with the rules to get a top goaltender (John Vanbiesbrouck), and we had one of the best defensive coaches in the history of the game in Roger Neilson, and at a time when the (neutral-zone) trap was coming into vogue.

"Doing that with older, hard-working and gritty players, we were able to win a lot of 3-2 and 2-1 games. So it all fit, and that team exceeded expectations by going to the Stanley Cup finals in its third year. But I knew even that year that this was a team at the end of its cycle. All our best players were over 30. It wasn't going to last."

Unlike the way Predators GM David Poile is slowly molding his Nashville team, and unlike the way Torrey had carefully designed a dynasty on Long Island, the Panthers went for immediate returns and eventually paid the price.

An early playoff exit in 1997 and two straight non-playoff finishes followed, taking a lot of luster off their stunning success in 1996. They may still be looked upon as a model of expansion success because of that one-season run, and they did build a Broward County fanbase and that glittering new building around it. And the team rebounded to win the Southeast Division last season.

What the Panthers didn't do was cast a perfect blueprint for later expansion clubs to follow.

	“	You have to suffer at some point. ”
		— Panthers president Bill Torrey on expansion

"That's not the best way you want to build an expansion team," Torrey said. "You have to suffer at some point, and I knew that then. The question is, when do you want to bite the bullet? You can bite it early, take your lumps until you get good in the fourth, fifth and sixth seasons. Or, you can build a good team early and then have it tough in the fourth, fifth and sixth seasons. That's what we had to do in Florida. But in my mind, if we don't get to the finals in '96, that beautiful new building in Sawgrass never gets built."

Without such financial considerations, and if the team is located in a market where hockey isn't so foreign, Torrey would still favor the turtle approach.

"Ideally, if an expansion team does its homework and does a good job at it, by year No. 4, it should be a competitive team," Torrey said. "You need a good three years to get there.

Rob Parent covers the NHL for the Delaware County (Pa.) Times. His NHL East column appears every week on ESPN.com.