We’re down to four teams in the NHL playoffs, which means it’s time for the copycats to get to work.
We’re constantly told that this is a copycat league, one where teams look to the contenders to see what’s working, then steal that plan. Plagiarism for the win, or at least the .500 record. Yesterday, Shayna suggested what teams can learn from this year’s success stories.
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From a fan’s perspective, that’s all well and good, as long as teams are borrowing the right ideas. That’s where we come in, with our annual attempt to guide the conversation in the right direction. As fans, we don’t mind a little bit of copying as long as it’s the fun ideas that are being stolen. What we don’t want is for teams to learn lessons that make this league more boring.
So today, we’ll continue our annual tradition of looking for three fun lessons from each remaining team. And we’ll also find one that isn’t as much fun, and try to shoot it down early. We can’t stop NHL teams from copying off each other’s papers, but we can at least try to steer them in a more fan-friendly direction.
New York Rangers
Fun lesson 1: Big-time UFAs can pay off.
Artemi Panarin is good. But is he $11-million a year good? That was the big question in 2019, when the Rangers paid up to get one of the best UFAs to hit the market in the cap era. So far, he’s delivered, finishing as a Hart finalist in 2020 and racking up a career-best 120 points this year. With only two years left on the deal, it’s pretty much guaranteed to be viewed as a success. Remember that the next time somebody tries to tell you that you can’t hit a home run on a big-ticket free agent.
Every player with 100+ points in the regular season and 10+ points in the playoffs this season:
— Connor McDavid
— Leon Draisaitl
— Artemi PanarinSuperstar pic.twitter.com/CXO1gKQUbY
— p – RangersMuse (@nyrangersmuse) May 21, 2024
Fun lesson 2: Don’t be afraid of a big decision behind the bench.
This one’s not very fun for the coaches themselves, but for fans, a big part of the intrigue of an offseason is whether a team will make a chance a coaching change. Typically, that applies to teams that miss the playoffs, but the Rangers reminded us that there can be higher standards. They parted ways with Gerard Gallant after only two years despite a 107-point season because they didn’t like how the team was trending. And sure, more than a few of us thought the hiring of Peter Laviolette was an uninspired bit of recycling. We were wrong.
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Big swings behind the bench can pay off. Do teams need this reminder? These days, maybe not, but let’s include it anyway.
Fun lesson 3: Have a great goaltender.
We know that goaltending is everything, but the big lesson of the last few years has been that your goaltender may not matter much. We saw it last year in Vegas, we saw it to a degree this year in Vancouver, and fans know the drill by now: Any goalie can get hot for a few weeks and win a series single-handedly.
And while that’s good news for teams who’ve gone cheap on the position, I don’t think it’s a net positive for fans in general. There’s something vaguely unsatisfying about the game’s most important position feeling as random as it does. You used to dream of your team finding the next Roy or Brodeur or Hasek. Now you just want somebody who can turn into Adin Hill for a month.
Or do you? Seeing the Rangers win round after round with the edge in net might balance the scales a bit. Or at least remind us that goaltending isn’t always about who gets lucky or hot or whatever else. Sometimes, it’s still about who’s better.
And one lesson to avoid: The deadline is overrated.
Every year, at least one team goes deep despite largely sitting out the deadline. This year it’s the Rangers, who did add Alexander Wennberg and a few depth pieces, but whiffed on Jake Guentzel and the other big names, landing them on a few post-deadline loser lists. And this was one year after they loaded up on big-name deadline veterans who were largely busts.
Your favorite team’s timid and risk-averse GM would probably love to see the Rangers win it all so he can point at them next February as he pleads for patience. Don’t listen to him because of this year’s four finalists, the Rangers are largely an outlier for their quiet deadline.
Edmonton Oilers
Fun lesson 1: Big time UFA signings can still turn out to be bargains.
Our efforts to pump the tires on July 1 continue. We already mentioned Panarin as a UFA success story, one that’s lived up to his contract. But then there’s Zach Hyman, signed three years ago to a seven-year deal that seemed at least mildly risky at the time, and that now seems like an absolute bargain. Every fan who sees their team sign a 20-goal guy dreams of the day he morphs into a 50-goal guy. It happened in Edmonton, which means it could happen to your team too. Free agency is great!
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(I will not be taking questions about Jack Campbell at this time.)
Fun lesson 2: More than one type of superstar can excel in the playoffs.
It’s possible I’m projecting here, but the trope of the “playoff player” in the NHL has evolved over the years to power forwards and stay-at-home defensem*n and that’s about it. If your favorite player is a skill guy, you can expect to get lectures about how you should enjoy those regular season numbers because it will inevitably all come crashing down as soon as things get nasty in the playoffs.
Then along come Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl to say “Sure, nasty sounds fine, bring it on.”
Neither guy is exactly viewed as the second coming off Eric Lindros or even Bobby Clarke, but they’ve been able to hold up just fine to the postseason grind. Maybe your team’s best players could too. (Not my team’s, no, but maybe yours.)
Incredibly, Draisaitl & McDavid are the greatest era adjusted playoff scorers at their age after *only* Gretzky & Lemieux.
⌛️Will their Cup run continue OR end tonight?
💥 Game 7. #LetsGoOilers @ #Canucks pic.twitter.com/9vpNwhkB6G
— Paul Pidutti (@AdjustedHockey) May 21, 2024
Fun lesson 3: Defenseman can take a little longer to develop, but they’re worth waiting for.
Evan Bouchard was drafted in 2018, the same year as guys like Brady Tkachuk and Andrei Svechnikov who feel like grizzled veterans. He wasn’t a full-time NHLer until he was 22, and really wasn’t a guy you’d ever call a star until this year’s breakout. Now he’s an offensive force, apparently having flipped the switch to “Paul Coffey” somewhere along the way. The only reason he’s not getting more Norris buzz is that we already know that fellow 2018 draft breakout Quinn Hughes has that one locked up. So if your team has a young blueliner who hasn’t quite clicked yet, remember: Sometimes it takes six years to realize you’ve got a difference-maker.
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And one lesson to avoid: Just win the lottery and pick a superstar first overall.
Yes, the Oilers won the 2015 McDavid lottery, and it changed the entire course of the franchise. No, none of us wanted it to happen. It did, and here we are.
So did the Oilers just get lucky? No. Well, yes, they got lucky, but not just lucky. And if they win it all, the grumbling from other fan bases about ping pong balls is going to be insufferable. Don’t be that guy. And if you’re a fan of a team that never has any lottery luck and/or doesn’t tank hard enough to chase the top odds, there’s good news down below in a certain team McDavid and the Oilers have to get past first.
Florida Panthers
Fun lesson 1: Safe is death.
In 2022, the Panthers had the most successful regular season in franchise history by roughly a mile, winning the Presidents’ Trophy with 122 points. Then they decided that it wasn’t good enough, fired the coach and made a monster trade. In the two postseasons since then, they’ve won five playoff rounds and counting.
Meanwhile, half the teams in the league just want to shrug and run it back, insisting that that’s simply the only option in a cap league. Except it isn’t, a lesson that plenty of teams could learn from the Panthers.
Fun lesson 2: Lead the league in penalty minutes.
OK, I’ll grant you that this one isn’t for everyone. And it’s not like this is some Don Cherry-esque call for a return to the Broad Street Bully days. For what it’s worth, the Panthers didn’t finish anywhere near the top of the league in fighting, racking up a lot of their PIM count with misconducts (i.e. the coward’s major). Besides, the next three teams in the PIM list were the Ducks, Coyotes and Wild, and they were all bad, so there doesn’t seem to be much causation here.
But I’m including it anyway because teams that take (and draw) a lot of penalties tend to be fun because power plays mean more offense. And more importantly, a little bit of bad blood never hurt. Speaking of which…
Fun lesson 3: It’s OK to be the villain.
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I warned you during the season. I warned you earlier in the playoffs. I’m warning you again. This is a very easy team to hate, and I have to grudgingly admit that that’s a compliment. Building a team with a personality is apparently not the end of the world.
And one lesson to avoid: Cut down on goals against.
When the Panthers won that 2021-22 Presidents’ Trophy, they led the league in goals, but lost in the second round. Last year, they dropped to fifth, and made it to the final. This year, they fell out of the Top 10 entirely, scoring exactly 1.0 goals-per-game fewer than they did two years ago, but moved up to second in goals allowed. If they win it all, the lesson will be clear: Scoring a bunch of goals is great for those regular-season stats, but championships are won in low-scoring games.
And, I mean… yeah, it’s tough to argue, especially after watching them shut down the Rangers on Wednesday. But let’s not forget that the Panthers have a 57-goal scorer who’s just one of their three point-per-game players. And they entered the conference final sitting third in goals-per-game in the playoffs, so it’s not like they dialed down the offense.
Besides, if you’re looking for a counterexample, we’ve got you covered…
Dallas Stars
Fun lesson 1: Score more goals.
The Stars are basically the anti-Panthers here. Over the last three years, they’ve gone from 21st in goals scored to seventh to third. This year’s team featured eight 20-goal scorers. The more scoring they do, the deeper they go.
Is that a more convincing argument than Florida’s case for defense? Not really, but it’s more fun, so we’re going with that.
Fun lesson 2: You can find a dynamic prospect without a top-five pick.
By now, we all know that the NHL is a league where elite talent drives results. A strong link game, so to speak. But the quest to find those strong links can be frustrating to fans because it often feels like there’s only one clear path: Tank, and then get lucky in the lottery. It’s why you’ll often hear about how rare it is to find a Stanley Cup winner that doesn’t feature at least one former top-three draft pick playing a key role.
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The Stars have one of those in Miro Heiskanen, who they took third in 2019, plus old-timer Tyler Seguin. But they’ve also done a remarkably good job of finding star-quality players later in the draft, including Jason Robertson (39th), Roope Hintz (49th), Jake Oettinger (26th) and Jamie Benn (129th). This year, the big story has been the emergence of Wyatt Johnston (23rd) and Thomas Harley (18th), plus the arrival of impact rookie Logan Stankoven (47th).
Tanking is common because it works. But if you’re a fan of a team that’s stuck in the mushy middle, or even one that’s traded away a bunch of first-round picks, there’s still hope. You can build a Cup-contender roster out of hitting on late picks. Hiring the Stars’ scouting staff might be a good start.
Fun lesson 3: You don’t have to trade a first to hit a deadline home run.
Speaking of draft capital, the Stars still have hoarded all of their own firsts for the next three years. Despite that, they were able to land a major impact player near the deadline in defenseman Chris Tanev. That’s good news for fans of deadline action, who are used to hearing from whiny GMs who insist that they can’t make a big move because they don’t want to trade a first, or don’t have one to move. Nonsense. Smart GMs like Jim Nill can figure out how to add at a reasonable price. If your team’s GM never can, it’s not because it’s impossible, it’s because he’s not good enough at his job.
And one lesson to avoid: Keep your GM forever.
Nill recently celebrated 11 years on the job in Dallas, making him the third longest-tenured GM in the league. And a bunch of his colleagues are probably secretly rooting for him to win a Cup so they can tell their bosses: See, it takes a long time, you have to have patience.
But here’s the twist: Nill has done a great job in Dallas, is the reigning GM of the Year winner, and is a finalist again this year. He’s good. That’s why he deserved to have 11 years and counting to execute his plan. That doesn’t mean everyone in a front office needs to have a decade before we can evaluate them. Not everyone is good at this, and not everyone gets results.
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And sure, there have been ups and downs in Dallas, and opportunities to make mistakes. They could have fired Nill after they missed the playoffs in three of four seasons from 2015 and 2018, or even after they followed a surprise appearance in the final in 2020 with a playoff miss the following season. They stuck with their guy, and it paid off.
But that doesn’t mean that’s always the right call. Keep your GM forever? No, keep your good GM forever. If you’re lucky enough to have one.
(Photo of Connor McDavid, Zach Hyman and Evan Bouchard: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
