Building A Contender – Part 5 – Conclusion

Proponents of this approach tend to point to the business side of the argument. Will the fans of market X really support an ugly rebuild that lands them first overall pick(s)? It’s likely true that many fans would be less inclined to pay over $200 a ticket for a team destined to be less competitive. However, if a team is more likely on a path to race to the bottom, rather than the top, there is no reason why they would have to spend to the cap. 

In theory, profitability could be maintained under a structure where a “tank team” spent closer to the floor than the cap, while passing on those saving to fans in the form of more affordable tickets, but this is probably a topic for another post at another time. 

There is also the emotional side of the argument, which is just as important to consider. Hockey lore is filled tales of the gritty underdog who achieved great things despite facing seemingly insurmountable odds. The nobility of doing it the hard way is etched into the our psyche, and we place a high value on teams and players who earn their success by not choosing the easy way out. Most would much prefer a team that tries to win and fails miserably, than a team that is designed to fail and does so spectacularly. 

Many of these fans espouse a general distaste for tanking in general, looking down on Tim Murray’s ruthless efficiency as if he was a teenager who found the cheat code to a video game. However, what Murray has done is rather extraordinary. Any GM can find themselves selecting in the top 5, but this is usually accompanied with the GM being out of work shortly before it becomes time to make the pick. The motivation for self-preservation presents a pretty significant motivator against a strategic tank, as what’s in the long-term interests of the team and the GM aren’t always the same. 

Where Murray was successful was in his ability to present a ruthlessly efficient strategy to rebuild a club in a relatively short period of time through losing, and successfully getting the buy in from management to execute this plan.

Today’s Collective Bargaining Agreement dictates a complex structure under which management can build their teams. The draft is determined by a certain structure, which favors the worst teams in the league. Top players don’t reach unrestricted free agent status until 27, but most of the elite players get locked up by their teams before ever reaching free agency.

Like it or not, today’s NHL is a highly competitive environment, where advantages are gained an lost by those who understand its structure and build their strategies to exploit advantage. This is why many fans in Toronto and Buffalo actively cheer for their favourite team to lose. 

So over the course of this series, what have we learned?

We have learned that despite all the discussion about how much parity there is in the NHL, the vast majority of teams who compete for the Stanley Cup do so with the help of two or more star (>15 GAR in single season) or superstar (>20 GAR in single season) players. Today’s NHL is about the stars, as it always has been. 

Trades are also a bit of a non-starter, as elite players in their prime rarely get traded. Sure, there’s the rare exception of the odd Tyler Seguin, but you can’t really build a strategy around another team making a misstep of this magnitude, you can only hope you’re positioned to exploit them when they do. Similarly, a well executed free agency strategy is an excellent avenue to supplement depth, but the chances of finding an elite player via free agency is remote at best. At worst, there’s a high likelihood you’ll likely to have to overpay for a player in the decline of their career.

Because of the discount teams pay on young players still under their ELC years, who are also in the prime of their career, constructing team depth is largely dependent on successfully developing a prospect pipeline that regularly produces players that can contribute. As ESPN’s, Corey Pronman noted in a recent article, NHL team’s teams don’t draft well or poorly consistently. In fact, he found that draft success can be broken down to 25% skill and 75% luck, which is why its so important to draft by volume. 

The Canucks used this approach effectively in both 2013 and 2014 when they had two first round picks in both drafts, and it will be interesting to see whether they look to move players on expiring contracts, such as Radim Vrbata and Dan Hamhuis, in order to accumulate more high picks in the 2016 draft. It’s less likely that you’ll find a Superstar slide into your lap outside of the top five, but there are examples of players like Anze Kopitar, Claude Giroux, Ryan Getzlaf, and Corey Perry falling much later to they should. Of course, it’s highly unlikely that a pick outside the first few will turn out to be a Superstar, but provided you scout well, your odds increase with each additional pick you have. 

Take the Toronto Maple Leafs, for example. At the deadline, the Leafs traded two pending UFAs (Cody Franson and Mike Santorelli) for a Prospect (Brandon Leipsic), a 1st rounder (24th overall) and Olli Jokinen’s cap space. At the draft, they traded down twice, with the net impact being the 34th, 61st, and 68th overall picks. There’s no guarantee that Leipsic or the players selected (Travis Dermott, Jeremy Bracco, and Martins Dzierkals) will pan out to be NHLer, but they’ve increased their odds considerably through savvy trades and drafting by volume. 

This is by far the most controversial recommendation. From fans to many management teams, there is a palpable distaste for teams that build teams designed to lose. There is likely truth the importance of building a winning culture and having guys who are strong leaders in the room, especially in times where the team is facing significant adversity. However, it’s hard to avoid the reality that in today’s NHL reality, elite players are more often found in the top 5 picks in any draft than anywhere else, and it’s not even close.  

Of course this approach doesn’t guarantee success. Far from it. The Sabres may never become contenders, despite the additions of Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart. Critics are quick point to the Oilers “lost decade” as the prime example of how a tank rebuild can fail. The point of a tank isn’t to guarantee success at all, but rather the choice to follow the highest probability path to creating a contender, and sacrificing the present to attempt to meet that objective. Critics may characterize this as sleazy, or cheating, but as a young Ice-T said almost two decades ago, Don’t Hate the Playa, Hate the Game.