Saturday 7 November 2009

Who Needs 'Em?


Conventional wisdom generally holds that there is little value in a team tanking a season. It doesn't guarantee a Cup win, it aggravates a fanbase and leaves the players disillusioned and unmotivated.

Fair enough.

Last 10 Stanley's

2009 - Pittsburgh
2008 - Detroit
2007 - Anaheim
2006 - Carolina
2004 - Tampa Bay
2003 - New Jersey
2002 - Detroit
2001 - Colorado
2000 - New Jersey
1999 - Dallas

Nice list of teams.

A Road Less Travelled?

Interesting thing though, of those teams that have won the Cup in the last 10 years, no less than 6 teams owe significant debt to having been horrible teams at one time (or several times as the case may be):

2009 - Pittsburgh ... Crosby, Malkin, Fleury
2006 - Carolina ..... Staal ....... 2003, 2nd overall
2004 - Tampa Bay .... Lecavalier .. 1998, 1st overall
2002 - Detroit ...... Yzerman ..... 1983, 4th overall
2001 - Colorado ..... Forsberg .... 1991, 1st overall (Lindros)
1999 - Dallas ....... Modano ...... 1988, 1st overall

So that is 6 of 10.

Sidedoors

Of the other 4 teams:

2007 - Anaheim ...... Pronger (1993, 2nd overall) & Niedermayer
2003 - New Jersey ... Niedermayer
2000 - New Jersey ... Niedermayer .. 1991, 3rd overall


So, even if by way of Hartford and Toronto, 3 more teams needed players picked high in draft by teams that had, once upon a time, horrible, horrible seasons.

Righteousness

That leaves the 2008 Detroit Red Wings. They would be the anomaly.

They are the only team that has won the Cup in the last 10 years without a player who was chosen in the top-4 of a draft year.

Good for them!

Well, except for Brad Stuart maybe (1998, 3rd overall, San Jose)?

As he wasn't a key component of that team making the play-offs, winning a round or winning the Cup I guess we can ignore his contributions in the context of this post.

So. Still. Good for them.

Mostly.

Morality Play?

Don't kid yourself. Sometimes it takes a crawl through a river of shit.

While poor timing, poor drafting and poor management can ruin a good wallow in the muck of awfulness NOTHING can goose a team's chance to win it all like having one, or (even better) multiple, top-4 draft pick selections on the roster.

It's almost a pre-req.

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Have a great evening everyone.

2 comments:

Black Dog said...

So what are you saying? Is this the year? ;)

YKOil said...

Nah :)

Team isn't near bad enough and other teams are far more fragile.

The year to tank was the year after we traded Smyth. Perfect year to start a rebuild.

This year is like the last 3. Time to get serious about the play-offs (fix the depth issue) or time to get serious about rebuilding.

Apparently however, for this team's management, they only have time for doin' nuthin'.