The Characteristics of A Stanley Cup Champion
Every year at the beginning of the season, all the analysts make their predictions as to who will win the Stanley Cup. Come midseason, some reevaluate, some hang onto their original picks, and some have absolutely no clue due to the craziness of the NHL regular season. However, is there a predictor that can help us determine which team will win the Stanley Cup? Are there certain characteristics that a Stanley Cup champion has that other teams seem to lack? I went back to the 1967-1968 NHL season (the first season with more than the Original 6), to see if there were any characteristics that all of the Stanley Cup Champions seemed to have in common. I looked at almost every statistic that is available to us, from simple ones such as goals for and against, to even strength goals for vs. goals against, and the record in the 2nd half of the season. The results are posted in 3 separate Excel screen shots below (I'm not the most tech-savvy person and so if anybody has a better idea on how to do that let me know!).
So after taking a run through the results (Again apologies for having to display it in this format), you can see a few things that stand out as potential things in common for championship teams:
1. Early on, having the best record in the NHL almost equaled winning the Stanley Cup. Between 1967-1968 and 1978-1979, 8 of the 11 teams that won the Stanley Cup had the best record in the league. Since the lockout after the 1993-1994 season, we've had just 4 teams finish with the best record and win the Stanley Cup. However, that's not saying that the lower seeds are rising up to win Stanley Cups. Since 94-95, every team that has won the Stanley Cup has finished 1st or 2nd in their division, with a division winner taking the Cup 11 of those 15 years. So winning your division is a big plus in today's NHL for a team trying to win the Cup. Common sense backs this up as you supposedly have an "easier" path through the playoffs and you have home ice longer.
2. So the road record actually does matter...at least in recent years. We always hear about how good road teams make good playoff teams and good Stanley Cup contenders, but this study didn't exactly back that up until recent years. If you look at the chart, 10 of the 43 teams looked at actually had sub .500 road records, with a couple of teams actually finishing 6 or 7 games under .500! However, since the first lockout (94-95) that trend has changed dramatically. Since the lockout in 94-95, every team has had a winning road record and only 3 teams have failed to win more than 20 road games (96-97 Wings, 97-98 Wings, and 99-00 Devils). In recent years we've seen teams be dominant on the road and that is a fairly good predictor of Stanley Cup success.
3. You have to score goals. This may seem like a no-brainer statement, but I was shocked as to just how many champions finished in the top 10 in the NHL in goals scored. In fact, in the entire study, just 4 teams finished outside of the top 10 in the NHL in scoring and the 79-90 Islanders and the 82-83 Islanders are the only two teams to win the Stanley Cup without finishing in the top half of the NHL in scoring. However, as you can see, these two teams did have the 4th best and 1st best defenses in the NHL respectively.
4. Defense used to and still wins you championships...unless you are the Pittsburgh Penguins? This was another striking find for me. In the earlier part of the study, defense = championships. From 1972-1973 to 1978-1979 the team that was either 1st or tied for 1st in goals against won the Stanley Cup. That's impressive. In the past couple of years, we've seen defense slowly start to creep back in as a top 7 defensive team has won the Cup 4 of the past 5 years (08-09 Pittsburgh being the exception which brings me to my next interesting find). Another interesting anomaly - the Pittsburgh Penguins in their 3 championship years finished 18th, 20th, and 18th in goals against. That's a bad sign for Pens fans this year as they are currently in the top 10 (9th). Other than those crazy Penguins teams, only 1 team in the last 43 seasons has won the Stanley Cup with a defense that was not top 10 - The 05-06 Hurricanes, who were bolstered by a top 3 scoring team. Defense still wins championships unless your colors are black and gold, and in the black and gold case, you had/have super humans playing for you. That's probably why.
5. Another really cool trend I noticed was the 2nd half record of teams. I wanted to chart this because you always here how teams are "coming in hot" to the playoffs and I wanted to see if it actually held up. Well it did initially, but the trend has slowed in recent years. From 1967-1968 to 1982-83, 14 of the 16 Stanley Cup Champions had a better record in the 2nd half of the season than in the 1st. However, from 1983-1984 to present day, the trend has slowed significantly. Of the 27 champions in that time span, 16 have actually had worse records in the 2nd half of the season, compared to just 9 having better 2nd halves. Two teams had no change in their record during the season. But for the teams that had worse records, some had substantially worse records. For example, the 91-92 Penguins started 22-14-4 (.600 winning%), but finished just 17-18-5 (.488 winning %). The 97-98 Red Wings, fresh off their first Stanley Cup in 42 years, came out hot, starting 24-9-8 (.683%), but finished just 20-14-7 (.573%). The 06-07 Ducks had a great start to their season, starting 28-7-6 (.756%), but they closed with a 20-13-8 record (.585%). Another great example is the 07-08 Red Wings. They came out really hot, starting 30-8-3 (.768%), putting them on pace for a 126 point season! However, they finished 24-13-4 (.634%), slowing down significantly and actually enduring a 1-8-1 stretch at the end of February. Essentially, it looks like how you finish doesn't matter as much anymore, as only 1 of the past 6 champions has finished with a better record in the 2nd half than in the 1st.
6. Another interesting trend that has recently developed - special teams are starting to lose their importance in terms of being an integral part of a championship team. Between 1967-1968 and 1991-1992, just one team that won the Cup finished with a powerplay outside of the top 10 (89-90 Oilers). If you extend that span from 67-68 all the way through 2001-2002, you only have 3 teams outside of the top 10 in powerplay percentage. However, since 2001-2002, we've had 6 of the 8 Championship teams have powerplays not just outside of the top 10 - but not even in the top half of the NHL. Our past 3 Cup Champions have had the 20th, 16th, and 20th ranked powerplays respectively. In terms of the penalty kill, this past decade has seen teams with the 19th, 10th, 19th, and 16th ranked powerplays win and only 3 top 5 PK teams have won a Cup this past decade. That's a stark contrast again to earlier years. I firmly believe this is due to the lack of penalties that have been called in recent years. In a previous blog, I noted how penalty calls are at an all time low, with last year having just 291 penalties called on each team on average (lowest number in more than 30 years). Because there are fewer powerplay opportunities/penalty kill situations, teams no longer have to be experts to win. More of the game is played at even strength and that brings me to what I think is the most critical factor in determining a Stanley Cup champion.
7. Even strength play is at an all time high in terms of importance. When going back through and looking at the ratio of goals for/against at even strength, I did not expect it to turn out as it did. The results are stunning in terms of defining a Stanley Cup team. Since 1967-1968, only one team has finished outside of the top 10 in Even Strength F/A and that team finished 11th (03-04 Lightning). Of the 43 years looked at, the team that finished first or second won 22 Stanley Cups (51%). Only 9 teams have won the Stanley Cup since 67-68 that finished outside of the top 5 in Even Strength F/A. That's absolutely unbelievable, but it also makes a lot of sense. Hockey is played at even strength a majority of the time, and especially in the past two years with the decrease in penalties. Whichever team that can dominate that time will more often than not win their games. If you look at the table, Boston is T-1st in 10-11 - they were tied with their opponent in the Cup Finals, the Canucks. Even strength play has always been a significant factor in determining who wins, but nowadays, it has a heightened importance. With that being said, let's see how today's teams stack up, and let's see if we can narrow them down to a handful of contenders.
Here is a listing of the teams this year and how they are fairing in the categories that are being measured:
- First thing, we want to look at even strength. No team since the 67-68 expansion has ever won the Stanley Cup with less than a 1.07 Even Strength F/A. That allows us to eliminate:
Boston Bruins
Detroit Red Wings
New York Rangers
Philadelphia Flyers
San Jose Sharks
St. Louis Blues
Vancouver Canucks
So we are now left with the following contenders (listed in order of their even strength F/A)
- Boston Bruins
- Detroit Red Wings
- San Jose Sharks
- St. Louis Blues
- New York Rangers
- Vancouver Canucks
- Philadelphia Flyers
From there we can further eliminate because we know that since 1967-1968, only 2 teams have finished outside the top 15 in goals for, and just 4 have finished outside the top 10. So we'll go ahead and eliminate those teams outside the top 10 in scoring.
Boston Bruins
Detroit Red Wings
New York Rangers
Vancouver Canucks
Philadelphia Flyers
And then there were 5. Another elimination criterion I think we could use here is eliminate any team that is outside of the top 15 in defense. In today's league, no team will win the Stanley Cup if your defense is not at least in the top 15. Also, aside from the Pittsburgh Penguins franchise (90-91, 91-92, 08-09), only one team has won the Stanley Cup that was outside of the top 10 in defense so I think it is safe to eliminate the teams in the bottom 15 of the NHL in goals against.
Boston Bruins
Detroit Red Wings
New York Rangers
Vancouver Canucks
So we are now down to 2 teams from each conference, the Wings and Canucks of the West, and the Bruins and Rangers of the East. From here, any elimination becomes tricky. We've seen that special teams has become a little less important over the years, so I'm reluctant to eliminate any team based on special teams. I think the next and final elimination criterion I can use is the balanced scoring. Since the 67-68 season, no team has won the Stanley Cup with fewer than 8 10-goal scorers. And of those 43 years, only 11 have had fewer than double digit 10-goal scorers. We can clearly see when defense became a premium in the pre-2nd lockout years as we had a run of 5 straight teams winning the Cup with less than 10 10-goal scorers. However, the balanced scoring seems to be back as the past 4 Cup Winners have had at least 10 10-goal scorers. So I will eliminate the teams that are on pace to have 9 or fewer 10-goal scorers. Obviously things can change as we are just arriving at the midway point of the NHL season and a player could have a torrid 2nd half of the year and totally screw up any projections.
Boston Bruins
Detroit Red Wings
Vancouver Canucks
I think this final elimination criterion is a bit weak, but I think I can make a valid case for it. Since 67-68, 13 of the 42 teams (31%) had an even strength F/A ratio of 1.23 or less. If you remove the pre-2nd lockout period (94-95 through 03-04), that percentage reduces to 23.8%. If you remove the first 2 years back from the 2nd lockout when powerplays were at all time highs and thus the amount of even strength play was reduced significantly, the percentage drops to just 19.0% or 8 teams. Even strength play now is approaching an all time high and with three of the past four champions having been at 1.25 or higher (again 08-09 Pittsburgh is the exception), I have to lean towards the teams that are above 1.25
Boston Bruins
Detroit Red Wings
An interesting fact: If Boston keeps up their current Even Strength F/A ratio (1.89) and wins the Championship, they will have the 5th highest mark for a champion since 1967-1968, behind only the 74-75 Flyers (2.12), 75-76 Canadiens (1.96), 76-77 Canadiens (2.31), and the 77-78 Canadiens (1.96). The Red Wings mark isn't too shabby, as it would rank 8th among champions if they went on to win.
So there you have it. Balanced scoring, strong even strength play, a strong defense, top 10 offense, and a little bit of luck are all essential to a team winning the Stanley Cup. Since we are only at the midway point of the NHL season, a lot can change and thus this blog will have to be revisited at season's end. That is why I was very reluctant to use road record as a predictor in this blog because a team can get hot on the road in the 2nd half of the season so I did not want to eliminate anybody that could get hot such as St. Louis or Detroit, two teams that have sub .500 road records right now, but will more than likely pick it up in the 2nd half. As of the midway point, the Detroit Red Wings, Vancouver Canucks, and Boston Bruins are all exhibiting the characteristics of a Stanley Cup Champion. We'll see how the 2nd half plays out and we'll see if a team gets hot and actually wins the Championship, as that has been a rarity in the past few years. There are so many things that can change that this is definitely not a prediction I would bet the house on, but like I said, at the midway point, these three teams look very strong, especially Boston.
Prashanth Iyer
Very interesting though I think it might be a bit outdated now as the Canucks have been doing *much* better even strength lately and have made it a focus of their effort.
ReplyDeleteCare to share the spreadsheet?
ReplyDeleteYea I definitely don't mind sharing the sheet. If you want to email me at piyer97@gmail.com, I'll send you the two spreadsheets I used.
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