<p>What makes a Stanley Cup champion?</p>



<p>We understand the recipe well enough from a qualitative standpoint. A championship team needs a strong blend of finesse and grit so it can win track meets <em>or</em> wars of attrition. It needs clutch goaltending. It needs great finishers. It needs shutdown defensemen who can log 30 minutes a night. It needs depth. It needs veterans who “know how to win.”</p>



<p>But can we <em>quantify</em> the components of a winner in today’s NHL? Why not try to find out?</p>



<p>Out of pure curiosity, I broke down the past 10 Stanley Cup champions in various categories in search of meaningful correlations. What common traits do the best teams share? Can those characteristics predict the next Stanley Cup champ?</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Team Size</h2>



<p>What’s that they say about officials “putting the whistles away” during the Stanley Cup playoffs? The perception is that the bigger, heavier clubs get away with more in the postseason and are thus better equipped to make deeper Cup runs than the smaller squads. A team that can grind on the forecheck and win 2-1 games tends to translate to the playoffs better than a run-and-gun group.</p><div class="injected-ad injected-video" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="0" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="190"></div>



<p>Does that mean the most recent champs tend to be loaded with bruisers? Yes and no.</p>



<p>We can cross height off the prerequisite list. <a href="https://www.eliteprospects.com/league/nhl/teams-physical-stats/2014-2015">Per eliteprospects.com</a>, Only two of the past 10 Cup winners ranked among the five tallest in the league. Six of them ranked in the bottom third in height. The average league rank in height among the past 10 champs: 18<sup>th</sup>.</p>



<p>Weight, on the other hand? That matters a ton, pun intended. Heavy hockey wins. Five of the past 10 champs ranked among the five heaviest teams in the NHL, and sit sat in the top 10. We saw a temporary shift from 2015-2017, when the Blackhawks and Pittsburgh Penguins won Cups with some of the smallest teams in the NHL and relied their speed. But the pendulum swung back after that. The past four championship teams have ranked seventh, fourth, third and first in average player weight.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="1" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="151"></div>



<p><strong><em>Correlation: Very Strong (for player weight)</em></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Top-10 Scorers</h2>



<p>Does every champion need a superstar point accumulator, capable of carrying his team on any given night and making others around him better?</p>



<p>It appears that way. At first glance, we see that only five of the past 10 Cup winners had one or more players who cracked the top 10 in regular-season NHL scoring. It’s more like seven, however. In 2014-15, Patrick Kane was on a top-10 pace but missed the last quarter of the regular season with a broken collarbone. In 2021-22, Nikita Kucherov missed the entire regular season after hip surgery. Both players infamously parachuted onto their teams’ eventual-champion rosters for Game 1 of the postseason when their cap hits no longer counted. So most recent winners have boasted at least one go-to superstar forward.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="2" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="134"></div>



<p><strong><em>Correlation: Strong</em></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Top-10 Goalies</h2>



<p>In this just-for-fun exercise I define a top-10 goalie as “a goaltender who played at least half his team’s regular-season games and finished top-10 in save percentage that season.”</p>



<p>Based on those criteria, seven of the past 10 champions entered the playoffs relying on a top-10 goaltender in net. The 2015-16 Pens technically had one in Marc-Andre Fleury and didn’t end up starting him, but that’s offset by the fact the 2018-19 Blues had Jordan Binnington, who didn’t play enough games to meet my criteria. The only teams to win with goalies coming off non-top-10 regular seasons: the 2013-14 Los Angeles Kings (Jonathan Quick, who had a perfectly decent year), and 2017-18 Washington Capitals (Braden Holtby, who opened the playoffs on the bench).</p>



<p><strong><em>Correlation: Strong</em></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Shot-attempt Share</h2>



<p>It’s been about a decade since (some of) the mainstream hockey media began awakening to analytics as a meaningful way to evaluate players and teams. The 2011-12 Kings joined a run of dominant “possession” teams winning the Cup.<br><br>Before more sophisticated and accurate stats took over, Corsi was king for a while. It’s not as useful as it was, but I want to examine it for this exercise to see how much correlational power it still holds. From 2011-12 through 2015-16, the Cup champs ranked second, fourth, first, second and second in CF%, a.k.a. their share of the 5-on-5 shot attempts relative to their opponents. The 2016-17 Penguins and 2017-18 Capitals bucked the trend, as they were below-average possession teams in the regular season, but each Cup winner since then has cracked the top 10. The average Cup winner in the past 10 seasons ranks eighth in CF%, including six teams in the top five.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="3" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="281"></div>



<p><strong><em>Correlation: Very Strong</em></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Power-play Proficiency</h2>



<p>Clichés exist for a reason. They become popular enough nuggets of wisdom to become clichés because they tend to be true. “Offense wins games and defense wins championships” is a prime example. Fascinatingly, very few recent Cup champs did damage on the power play in the regular season. Five ranked in the bottom half of the league, only two in the top five, and the average league rank among Cup winners is 14<sup>th</sup>.</p>



<p><strong><em>Correlation: Weak</em></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Penalty-killing Proficiency</h2>



<p>Back to that cliché. It applies to playing shorthanded. Obviously, what a team actually does in the playoffs is the true determining factor in its victory, but I use regular-season numbers throughout this piece for (a) sample sizes and (b) the last stage of this exercise, which I won’t spoil yet.</p>



<p>Penalty killing has been paramount for recent Cup winners. Nine of 10 sat in the top half of the league, including three in the top five and six in the top 10. The penalty kill was absolutely vital for 2020 and 2021 Lightning teams regularly placing among the league leaders in penalties taken.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="4" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="182"></div>



<p><strong><em>Correlation: Very strong</em></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Stanley Cup Rings</h2>



<p>Can a team win a Stanley Cup without a presence in the dressing room that “knows how to win,” or is that an overblown myth? Factoring out the teams that repeated as champs and thus were loaded with “past winners,” the championship teams of the past decade all had one or more players who already had Cup rings entering that post-season, from Justin Williams on the 2011-12 Kings to Brooks Orpik on the 2017-18 Caps. The exception is arguably the 2018-19 St. Louis Blues. They technically had a Cup winner in Oskar Sundqvist, who played on the 2016-17 Pens, but he only dressed for six playoff games on that team. So the “Gloria” Blues were more or less a green group before going all the way. Still, in the pure technical sense, every Cup winner of the past 10 seasons had at least one team member who owned a prior ring.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="5" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="154"></div>



<p><strong><em>Correlation: Very strong</em></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Trade Deadline Acquisitions</h2>



<p>The magnitude of the trades has varied wildly, but nine of the past 10 Cup winners made at least one trade near the deadline or on deadline day. Among the noteworthy acquisitions:</p>



<p>2011-12 Kings: Jeff Carter<br>2012-13 Blackhawks: Michal Handzus<br>2013-14 Kings: Marian Gaborik<br>2014-15 Blackhawks: Antoine Vermette, Kimmo Timonen, Andrew Desjardins<br>2015-16 Penguins: Justin Schultz<br>2016-17 Penguins: Ron Hainsey, Eric Fehr<br>2017-18 Capitals: Michal Kempny<br>2018-19 Blues: None<br>2019-20 Lightning: Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow<br>2020-21 Lightning: David Savard</p>



<p>The 2018-19 Blues are the only recent winner that didn’t make a key roster tweak at the deadline. They technically added Michael Del Zotto in February 2019, but he never dressed for a playoff game.</p>



<p><strong><em>Correlation: Very strong</em></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Which 2021-22 Team Fits the Bill?</h2>



<p>So if we extract all the strongly correlated characteristics of recent Cup champs, we get a team that:</p>



<p>– Is among the heaviest in the NHL<br>– Has at least one top-10 scorer<br>– Has a top-10 goalie<br>– Ranks among the league’s best in CF%<br>– Has a great penalty kill<br>– Has at least one player with a Stanley Cup ring<br>– Made at least one trade-deadline move</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="6" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="175"></div>



<p>Let’s get literal and see which teams, if any, meet all these criteria.</p>



<p>It should come as no surprise that the back-to-back champion Lightning come close. They’re currently the NHL’s heaviest team at an average of 209 pounds; own an elite goalie in Andrei Vasilevskiy; are loaded with Stanley Cup rings; and made a couple of important trade deadline moves.</p>



<p>They’re not the team that meets <em>every single criterion</em> on the list though. That’s the <strong>Calgary Flames</strong>. Check out these specs:</p>



<p>– Fourth-heaviest team in the NHL at an average of 202 pounds<br>– Two top-10 scorers in Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk<br>– A top-10 goaltender in Jacob Markstrom<br>– Second in the NHL in CF%<br>– Fourth in the NHL in penalty killing (85.4%)<br>– Multiple players with Cup rings (Coleman, Tyler Toffoli, Milan Lucic etc.)<br>– Made at least one trade-deadline deal (Calle Jarnkrok, Ryan Carpenter etc.)</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="7" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="144"></div>



<p>So if we judge the current group of top Stanley Cup contenders by how closely they correlate with other recent champs? The Flames are the team to beat, hands down. I may have to reconsider my predictions come playoff time.</p>
