How do you build a Stanley Cup winner?
It's the question that gnaws at general managers around the NHL when they go to sleep at night, as they try to contend with the salary cap and how to constantly move parts out as their stars require new, bigger contracts. It's a difficult, relentless battle, one that often can eat away at team's depth and makes it tough to stay on top.
No team has managed it better than the Chicago Blackhawks.
Even strength | ||||||
Cup winners | GF/60 | GA/60 | Possession | SH% | SV% | PP+PK |
Detroit 2008 | 7th | 2nd | 1st | 22nd | 7th | 3rd |
Pittsburgh 2009 | 2nd | 10th | 17th | 1st | 11th | 17th |
Chicago 2010 | 2nd | 12th | 1st | 7th | 29th | 8th |
Boston 2011 | 2nd | 1st | 15th | 6th | 1st | 20th |
LA Kings 2012 | 29th | 2nd | 4th | 30th | 4th | 5th |
Chicago 2013 | 2nd | 2nd | 1st | 5th | 8th | 7th |
LA Kings 2014 | 26th | 1st | 1st | 29th | 2nd | 20th |
Average | 2.45 | 1.90 | 55.0% | 7.90 | 0.927 | 1.6 |
Chicago 2015? | 2.65 | 1.75 | 55.7% | 7.68 | 0.939 | 1.2 |
The funny thing about the standings at this time of year is that they can tell a lot of lies. The three teams with the best records after 40 per cent of the season are Nashville, Anaheim and Pittsburgh, and all three have had more bounces go their way than Chicago.
It’s worth asking if Pekka Rinne and Marc-Andre Fleury, for example, are both going to keep up career years over the long haul.
Or if the Ducks can win just about every one-goal game they play in. But you look at Chicago’s record and the underlying data behind it, and no team has built a better early foundation for success later on. The past seven Stanley Cup winners have been, on balance, dominant even-strength teams. They outscored the opposition an average of 0.55 goals per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 hockey and had a possession rating of 55 per cent.
The typical championship team in this era of analytics has been a play-driving one in the Detroit model, not a more shooting and save percentage reliant one as the Preds and Penguins have been so far.
And with everyone trying to play catch-up, no one is closer to matching what those other Cup teams did than Chicago has this year.
Part of where GM Stan Bowman appears to have had an edge and where other recent winners have failed is he has simply had a younger core to tie up.
While some key pieces of the Wings, Bruins and even Kings have got older and less effective, the Blackhawks are still dealing with a 26-year-old captain (Jonathan Toews) and 26-year-old leading scorer (Patrick Kane) who are both well underpaid.
That changes next year when their salaries rise to $10.5-million hits against the cap, but right now, Bowman has a one-year window with that extra $8.4-million to sink into his depth players, and in such a close league, that’s a considerable difference.
They’ll lose a core piece in the off-season and may take a step back as a result, but for now, this is the best team in the league and the best bet to win it all.
Again.
Rising
The Washington Capitals
There’s a team streaking up the Eastern Conference standings, and they really haven’t gotten much attention all year.
The Capitals have probably had the best December in the NHL to date – going 8-2-2 after shutting out the Penguins on Saturday – and netminder Braden Holtby has been one big reason. But not the only one.
New coach Barry Trotz’s work in D.C. has been somewhat overshadowed by the fact his former team in Nashville is off to such a good start, but what works in the Caps favour more than the Preds is how easy their path is in their division and conference.
Despite winning only 10 of their first 24 games, Washington is now five points behind the Islanders for second in the Metro, which would give them home ice advantage in Round 1.
Beyond Holtby, why they’re winning is a collection of factors. The new adds on the blueline – Matt Niskanen and Brooks Orpik – have allowed Trotz to shelter Mike Green, who has produced against teams’ third and fourth lines, and John Carlson to emerge as a solid No. 1.
So for now, their controversial spending on the blueline in free agency has paid off.
The problem is this is a team right up against the cap and lacking depth up front.
With Alex Ovechkin now 29 and starting to move out of his prime, this looks like a franchise that should be in win-now mode.
Of late, they’ve started to make that look like less of a pipe dream. Realistically, they could do some damage in the East, especially if Holtby’s recent run is more than a blip.
After some time in the wilderness, it’s time to start paying attention to the Capitals again.
Falling
The Boston Bruins
Meanwhile, the Bruins are mired in a funk that seems to be getting deeper by the game.
Early on, most would attribute their malaise to losing Zdeno Chara (to injury) and Johnny Boychuk (to a trade for largely cap-related reasons), but Chara has been back the past eight games and the losses keep piling up. The latest was a particularly ugly one Saturday against the Blue Jackets, who rang up six goals on both netminders and dropped Boston’s record to 3-3-2 since Chara returned to the lineup.
WSome of this is on Tuukka Rask, who is having his worst season statistically in the NHL (.910 save percentage) at a really bad time, but this also is a Bruins team that’s not nearly as deep as its been the past.
GM Peter Chiarelli went to great lengths to re-sign many of the key cogs from his 2011 Cup team, but with Chara banged up (and approaching 38 years of age) and David Krejci ailing for much of the season, it’s been alarming how much they’ve been a one-line team.
When Patrice Bergeron is on the ice, the Bruins are still the Bruins, but otherwise, they’re ordinary, less than eight months after winning the Presidents’ Trophy.
The pressure is mounting for Boston’s management to do something, but the reality is they’re married to some of the bad bets they’ve made (trading Tyler Seguin, throwing big money at Milan Lucic, etc.).
More than anything they look like a poor imitation of the club that won it all 3.5 years ago, one that’s playing in a league that’s only got younger and faster since then. They’re better than their record right now, but they’re worse than they’ve been in a long time. And there’s no quick fix save for hoping they get healthier and play better.
Is the East still the least?
Score one for the Eastern Conference: They haven’t been pummelled nearly as badly this year.
Last season, the difference between the East and West was almost embarrassing for the NHL. Out of 448 inter-conference games, the East won only 202 (45 per cent), playing at an 84.6-point pace in a league where that is lottery draft territory.
(And that was with the Bruins going 18-4-6 in those games.)
But Eastern teams are 93-80-20 against the West this season, winning 48 per cent of the time despite the fact the bottom of the East is littered with Connor McDavid hopefuls.
East vs West | W | L | OTL | Pts | Pace |
Last season | 202 | 188 | 58 | 462 | 84.6 |
This season | 93 | 80 | 20 | 206 | 87.5 |
The league has been lucky in a sense to have this as a trend, though.
With the conferences unbalanced due to an uneven number of teams, teams in the East have a substantially lower chance of making the postseason (50 per cent compared to 57).
If things were flipped and the East was better than the West, teams would be missing the playoffs with very good records. Instead, the current imbalance in talent creates a fortunate balance where it’ll probably take a similar record to clinch a wild-card berth in both conferences.
That may not always be the case, which is part of why the NHL is pushing to put an expansion team (with Las Vegas the leading candidate) into the West by 2016 or 2017.
Which should help even out the records even more.