Sustaining a Winner

(photo via forbes.com)

This time of year the obsession is always based around deadline pickups, but after taking a look at the last 6 Stanley Cup Champions, and comparing the rosters of those who repeated, it became even more evident than before that you can’t rely on free agents, deadline pickups and outside help if you want to get on top, and stay there.

With the modern salary cap and the economy in the state it’s currently in, there needs to be a solid base of home grown talent so when key pieces are let go, they can simply be replenished at a fraction of the cost.

Take the Chicago Blackhawks of this year, with so much money tied up in their core (Keith, Kane, Toews, Seabrook, Crawford, Hossa) they really had no other choice then to fill the rest of their lineup with homegrown talent like Teravainen, Panarin, Shaw and Van Riemsdyk.

Stan Bowman deserves most of the credit, for developing a system that hasn’t really been matched by any other franchise, except for maybe the LA Kings.

Here’s my breakdown of the year by year Stanley Cup Winners and what hindered (or allowed them) to be repeat champions.

NOTE: A regular is defined as having played a strong majority of the team’s playoff games, generally more than 15.

2009/2010 Chicago Blackhawks

20 Regulars on Playoff Roster

Out of their 20 regulars players during this run, a stunning 12 players were homegrown, with 6 of them coming outside of the second round of the draft. Another interesting aspect to this is noting what year those players, who were mostly all crucial to the cup win, we’re drafted in and the development curve this took. But that’s a conversation for another day.

This team was the best modern example of how to build a team in a cap world. In the offseason they saw a lot of these key players leave, but they rebounded by using a similar philosophy.

2012/2013 Chicago Blackhawks

19 Regulars

11 out of their 19 regulars were homegrown talent. Names like Niemi, Brouwer, Byfuglien, Burish and Ladd were replaced by Chicago drafted players like Crawford, Bolland, Saad, Shaw and Kruger. They had a deep enough system where they could let those guys go and return to glory within a few short years. Nothing short of outstanding.

2014/2015 Chicago Blackhawks

While building the second championship winning team, the most astonishing feat was how Stan Bowman and the rest of the organization could replenish the talent pool. This year, although they did add Teravainen, it was amazing how they could retain everybody.

Throughout their three Cup championships, they managed to fight off the cap by not constantly bringing in outside help, but instead building through their own system, especially with value picks late in the draft like Kruger, Shaw and Hjalmarsson.

The LA Kings are the next team I looked at who ran a system very similar to that other Hawks in that they used a heavy amount of homegrown talent.

2011/2012 LA Kings

18 Regulars 

Drafted in 1st or 2nd Round: Kopitar, Doughty, Brown, Voynov,  Lewis

Drafted After the 2nd Round: King (109th in 2007), Martinez (95th in 2007), Quick (72nd in 2005), Nolan (186th in 2009)

They ran with 11 homegrown talents, similar to Chicago in their last two wins. The Kings were able to stay under the cap and competitive by using the bargain deals they had with players like Jordan Nolan, Dwight King and Alec Martinez to fill out the bottom of their line-up.

For their second run, when they lost production from Mike Richards and didn’t have Dustin Penner, they replaced those players with in-house, homegrown talents like Tanner Pearson and Tyler Toffoli. It was key contributions from those bargain type players and some breakout runs from guys like Alec Martinez that allowed them to improved with some outside help because they had that cap space.

2013/2014 LA Kings

Drafted in 1st or 2nd Round: Kopitar, Doughty, Brown, Toffoli, Pearson, Voynov, Clifford, Lewis

Drafted After the 2nd Round: King (109th in 2007), Martinez (95th in 2007), Quick (72nd in 2005)

It’s clear to see what worked for the two teams that have repeat championships. There was a clear system that worked. So why didn’t the Boston Bruins do that?

2010/2011 Boston Bruins

Drafted in 1st or 2nd Round: Bergeron, Seguin

Drafted After the 2nd Round:  Krejci (63rd in 2009), Marchand (71st in 2006), Lucic (50th in 2006)

The Bruins got close to winning multiple Cups. Very close. But just by looking at their rosters it’s clear to see what their fatal flaw was. When they won this championship they did it with outside veterans like Ryder, Recchi and Kaberle. When those names were gone they didn’t have anyone waiting in the wings to take over from them.

They almost did the opposite of what they should have when they dealt Seguin to Dallas for a dismal return. The Lucic trade was more in line with getting a stronger base for the future and it finally looks like they have some names ready to take over for the Chara’s Krejci’s and Bergeron’s of this team.

Guys like Pastrnak, Spooner, Randell, Morrow and Krug appear ready to take the torch and the Bruins needed the wake-up of not making the playoffs to catch on with how teams are built, and how they have to be built in todays NHL.