I’ve spent a lot of time looking at roster building strategies here over the past while. Regardless of the strategy a team deploys, there are some universal themes that should guide the process. Here are 10 teambuilding tenets:
#1 – Elite Teams Are Driven By Elite Players
It’s not rocket science. There’s no room for galaxy brain schemes at the top of the depth chart. The gap between the best players in the world and the players in the next tier down is larger than any other. It’s nearly impossible to build a contending team without elite players leading the way. Two forwards and a defenseman is the starting point. Consider some of the most successful teams of the cap era:
- Barkov/Tkachuk/Forsling
- Stone/Eichel/Pietrangelo
- MacKinnon/Rantanen/Makar
- Stamkos/Kucherov/Hedman
- Ovechkin/Backstrom/Carlson
- Crosby/Malkin/Letang
- Bergeron/Marchand/Chara
- Toews/Kane/Keith
- Kopitar/Brown/Doughty
It’s non-negotiable. These are the game breakers that draw the focus of opponents and still perform at a high level.
#2 – Depth Is The Great Divider
Elite players drive the roster, but it’s the players around them that separate the wheat from the chaff. By playoff time, teams cannot rely too heavily on a few players. Good teams will shut down unsupported stars, or slow them down enough to overcome their influence. Secondary scoring is imperative, as is play driving ability throughout the lineup. As I’ve written about recently, depth with the right attributes is critical to transitioning strong team performance from the regular season into the playoffs against stronger competition.
#3 – Goaltending Is Voodoo
There are very few goaltenders worthy of big money or long term contracts. We can probably count them on one hand at any given time. Having such a netminder on the roster is a luxury. It’s also unlikely. But it doesn’t mean a team can’t win. Getting average or better goaltending may be good enough for a strong team to bring home a Stanley Cup. There are plenty of goalies capable of going on sustained runs of strong performance. Just don’t spend big and don’t commit long term.
#4 – Climbing The Standings Is Hard
Teardown rebuilds have become the de facto strategy to build a contending roster in the NHL. Sometimes, it works. We’ve established already that teams need elite players and the most common way to acquire that game breaking talent is through the top of the draft. It’s far from a sure thing though. When a team starts from the bottom, there are 31 other teams ahead of them that don’t want to be passed. Teams don’t line up to gift rebuilding teams good support pieces. They line up to offload their poor decisions.
#5 – Swing Big For Stars
While the top of the draft is the most common way teams acquire elite players, it’s not the only one. Elite players do occasionally hit the trade market or free agency. In just the past two seasons, Matthew Tkachuk, Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart and Alex Pietrangelo won Stanley Cups following a change of address. Elite players are a necessity. They’re also few in number. When one becomes available, they’re worth pursuit.
#6 – Incremental Value Provides Competitive Edge
Doing one thing better much better than other teams provides an edge that is easily guarded against. Doing many things slightly better than other teams provides a large edge that is difficult to compete against. Deploying better players at equivalent positions throughout the lineup makes matchups difficult. Drafting and developing better feeds the roster with high value young prospects. Trading and signing better add additional value to the NHL roster and prospect pipeline. Managing the cap better provides more resources to improve the roster. Doing all of these things well gives a massive leg up over the rest of the league.
#7 – Flexibility Is Important
Locking in a few elite players for the long haul is a great way to set up for long term success. Locking up an entire core is dangerous. Contracts with term remaining are difficult to move. No move/trade clauses are even worse. With too many long term deals and/or NMCs, it’s very difficult to adjust course if the current group doesn’t quite have it. Offloading bad deals is expensive, and generally necessitates violating tenet #6 above.
#8 – Regenerate the Roster
Age curves are a real thing. Prospects blossom into capable NHLer, then fade into oblivion. Every team is granted the same set of draft picks by the league to replenish their roster. Outside of the draft, replacing lost value from aging players declining or retiring can only happen by giving up other assets through trade or adding through free agency, which is generally expensive. The whole process can be flipped on it’s head, though. Moving older players still under contract for young players and draft picks can fuel a regenerative approach to roster building.
#9 – Innovate
The NHL is a copycat league. Teams do what they see succeed. Following will make you as good as the other contenders. To be the best takes something different. Continuously look for opportunities to improve roster building strategies and take calculated risks to implement them.
#10 – Mistakes Happen
Mistakes happen. It’s an inherent risk embedded with many of the tenets above. Acknowledging mistakes and making a move to correct one when it’s recognized limit the damage and prevent a longer term issue that erodes roster value.
