Four lessons NHL teams should learn from this year’s Stanley Cup finalists
It’s no secret that NHL is a copycat league. Whether teams are fighting tooth and nail to buy high on the defending champion’s salary cap castoffs or they’re furiously attempting to recreate the winning roster with dollar-store equivalents, teams just can’t help but desperately pivot to the winning team’s style and roster makeup.
Sometimes, that leads to some horrible decision-making, especially if teams learn the wrong lessons. But there are also some things to learn from the Cup-winning teams, and if it’s an aspect of their play that hasn’t gotten nearly as much attention as others, it works ever more in the aspiring team’s favor.
With that in mind, let’s dive into four things that this year’s Stanley Cup Finalists, the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers, do very well that other NHL teams should find a way to replicate. I’ll only be looking at some of the lesser explored aspects of both teams that would allow teams to zig while others zag, so as good as the Panthers’ forecheck and physicality in these playoffs have been, it’s gotten enough attention that you probably don’t need me to explain their benefits to you again.
Driving expected goals
Many believe that hockey is out of the analytics era or at the very least has shifted beyond the need for it. Teams that appeared to make analytics a big part of their identity five to 10 years ago like the Panthers or Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t see the success that they wanted to from that direction and have since converted their rosters to more of an old-school physical style. On top of that, using shooting and save percentages to quantify luck doesn’t work nearly as well as players have improved their finishing talent.
But that’s still not entirely true. While analytics have certainly changed from the era of Corsi and PDO, they still do drive a lot of teams’ success and failures, especially with regards to expected goals and scoring chances. I had noticed a trend last year that most of the recent Cup-winning teams are ones that finish top 10 in 5v5 expected goals for and against per 60 minutes in the regular season (with the exceptions still being in the top 15), and once again, that is the case this season.
The Panthers finished the season sixth in 5v5 xGF/60 and second in 5v5 xGA/60, while the Oilers were second in 5v5 xGF/60 and 11th in xGA/60. 11th is also a bit of a misleading position for Edmonton defensively, because they finished just 0.01 xGA/60 behind the Vancouver Canucks and Vegas Golden Knights for ninth, so they’re basically right there. The Oilers were also third in that regard after the trade deadline, so they very much made the necessary adjustments at the trade deadline by acquiring Jake Walman and became an elite defensive team as a result.
You don’t have to comb spreadsheets and data to know teams that excel at consistently maintaining possession and convert that possession to strong chances tend to be the best teams. Heck, the reason physical teams like the Panthers thrive at that is because they have players with strong net-front ability, which is where the best chances are at. The smartest teams are the one that use analytics to evaluate their team, find their weaknesses, and address them, which is what both the Panthers and Oilers have done over the years to become the back-to-back Finalists that they are now.
Elite defensive play
It’ll be a shame if this three-year run from the Panthers is remembered solely for them being a physical team with an aggressive forecheck that was hard to play against. It’s certainly an important element of their game that has driven their success, but I’d argue that there’s a more essential aspect that doesn’t get nearly as much credit: their elite defensive play.
That starts with Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart. They aren’t just two of the best defensive forwards in the league, they actually rank first and second in defensive goals above replacement over the last three years with Reinhart’s 21.7 and Barkov’s 15.4. It should be no surprise why Barkov has been a finalist for the Selke Trophy in four of the last five seasons (winning three times) and Reinhart finally was one this year.
When this duo are on the ice over the past few years, they’ve managed to shut down some of the best players in the league, including the likes of Nikita Kucherov, Auston Matthews, David Pastrnak, Artemi Panarin, and, of course, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. While Sam Bennett, Matthew Tkachuck and Co.’s shenanigans have gotten the headlines during these runs, that play from Barkov and Reinhart is why the Panthers are so successful. They can make the other team’s best players a non-factor, chip in on offense, and give the rest of the team the space to run rampant on their opponents.
And in the case of the Oilers, just look at how much better they are this season and how that’s happened to coincide with Leon Draisaitl transforming his game from a defensive liability to a strong defensive player in his own right. It’s not quite at the level of Barkov and Reinhart, but your top players being two-way specialists can make a big difference in the playoffs.
Prioritizing mobile defensemen
I’ve already mentioned how important it is for the best teams to “zig when other team’s zag,” where they find the inefficiencies in the market and capitalize on them. And that was particularly the case with defensemen and how the Oilers and Panthers prioritized mobile, puck-moving defensemen at a point in time where teams are looking for big blueliners that can clear the front of the net.
Just look at most of the defensemen acquired by contenders at the trade deadline. Cody Ceci. Ryan Lindgren. Luke Schenn. Erik Johnson. Brandon Carlo. All defensemen better known for their physicality or their work in the defensive zone than the offensive zone. Even in free agency last summer, there were more defenders of the ilk of Matt Roy, Brett Pesce, Nikita Zadorov and Chris Tanev getting paid than there were of Brandon Montour, Brady Skjei and Shayne Gostisbehere. But what were our two finalists doing throughout the year? Adding mobility to their blueline.
For the Panthers, that started with signing Nate Schmidt and Adam Boqvist to show-me deals in free agency. Boqvist didn’t last too long, eventually going to the New York Islanders on waivers, but Schmidt has emerged as an excellent puck-moving option for the lower-end of their lineup. And when they were still in need of a big-time, mobile defenseman, they went after the best one at the deadline in Seth Jones.
As for the Oilers, they didn’t quite start off their season like that, instead going for Troy Stecher and Josh Brown in free agency, and they actually lost a puck-moving defenseman in Philip Broberg. But they paid the price there, as they spent the season up until the trade deadline as a mediocre defensive team (15th in the league with 2.48 5v5 xGA/60 in that span). But they shifted their focus, as signing John Klingberg midway through the year was a low-risk gamble that paid off. Then, they added the other big-name mobile defenseman available at the deadline in Jake Walman. Suddenly, their defensive game improved by leaps and bounds and was third in the league after the deadline. That’s not a coincidence.
Still able to have depth while paying your stars
If you take a quick skim of the Oilers and Panthers’ cap sheets, you’ll notice that despite the popular notion that allocating a lot of money to your stars doesn’t work, they’ve still managed to do that. The Panthers currently pay two players $10+ million, five more players $7+ million, and two more $5+ million, while the Oilers only pay McDavid $10+ million and two more players $7+ million, but four more at $5+ million. It’s not as top heavy as, say, the Maple Leafs, but both teams are still spending a good chunk of their salary cap on less than half of their rosters.
But both teams have also proven that if you’re smart with your spending, you can still bring in quality depth options to surround those players. For the Oilers, not only are all their big money players playing at or above the level of their pay, they’re also the beneficiary of bargain cap hits in Evan Bouchard and Jake Walman, while they’re also getting some depth scoring from Corey Perry, Connor Brown, and even Vasily Podkolzin & Kasperi Kapanen for the minimal money that they’re being paid.
For the Panthers, you could actually make the case that some of their top paid players are underperforming. It still feels like Tkachuk, Reinhart and Gustav Forsling have an extra gear to them, and even Barkov and Jones have been streaky at times. But when you have Bennett, Brad Marchand, Eetu Luostarinen, Anton Lundell and Evan Rodrigues all floating around a point-per-game while getting paid $5 million or less, and Schmidt and Niko Mikkola performing well above their cap hits on the blueline, you can get away with that.
Now, the Panthers have some advantages. Their lack of a state tax has been one of the biggest talking points recently, and they also spent the final weeks of the regular season with Tkachuk’s $9.5 million cap hit on LTIR. But as long as there are no rules against it, why not utilize it? As a result, their depth is comparable to none in these playoffs, and it’s that kind of intelligence with finding good deals and finagling the cap that puts teams like Florida over the top.
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