Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was any NHL dynasty. Most teams that get to the top of the league follow a well-trod path of acquiring talent throughout the organization.
Bad NHL clubs easily acquire top-end playing talent simply by missing the playoffs for an extended period. The format of the NHL draft – which rewards failure – ensures the worst teams are given a regular opportunity to progress if they manage their resources well. These teams fail when they start trading high draft picks just to struggle to get to the lower rung of the playoff ladder, or when they lock in low-tier players to long-term, overpriced contracts to try and stay “competitive.”
Three NHL franchises have been taking the “bottoming out” process to absurd extremes. They’ve been acquiring talent in the process, but also possibly mismanaging it along the way.
The Edmonton Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs have combined to play one playoff series since Edmonton made the final in 2005-06. The Buffalo Sabres have joined them at the bottom of the standings in recent years, but they were still a 100-point team as recently as 2009-10.
The similarities between these three teams are striking:
– They have all finished in the bottom three spots in the NHL multiple times in the past five years. It is arguable whether that was by design or through mismanagement.
– All three have rich ownership that brought in new management to run their teams in 2014.
– All three have gone through three head coaches in the past three years, and have now settled on what they hope are long-term solutions in the role.
The journey back to the upper echelons of the NHL is never easy and many have faltered. It’s a process of development and often takes at least a few years. Florida has been rebuilding for over a decade and finally seems to have found the right mix. The process entails accumulating young talent throughout the organization and adding veteran players to lead the group. But you also need talent in management, player development and coaching.
We all know about the talent that’s been accumulated by these three franchises, but how is the implementation of a team structure working out as the coaching staffs cultivate long-term success? By looking at the past three seasons for each club and breaking down underlying performance under each head coach, we can paint a decent picture of which stage each plan appears to be at.
*data courtesy War-On-Ice.com and Corsica.Hockey*
Offensively it looks as though Todd McLellan and Mike Babcock have implemented a game plan that is leading to more shot attempts and scoring chances from dangerous areas of the ice – the low slot in particular. This is also where we can see some signs of the offensive malaise that afflicted the Oilers under Dallas Eakins as he attempted to get the team to buy into a more structured game plan by throwing pucks on net. The team generated significantly more shot attempts, but the scoring chance numbers remained stable while expected goals and shooting percentage declined.
Dan Bylsma’s Sabres surprisingly posted comparable attempt and chance numbers to what the Leafs were producing under Peter Horachek at the end of 2013-14, albeit with superior power play results and shooting percentages. That will need to improve if Buffalo hopes to continue its progression up the standings, and it should as Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart develop into consistent scoring threats.
Defensively we can see Babcock and Bylsma have implemented a supportive structure that limits opportunities for the opposition. Despite icing relatively young lineups that feature defencemen under the age of 21 on their top pairings, both Toronto and Buffalo made significant strides on the defensive side of the puck.
Edmonton, on the other hand, has been lacking here. Though improved over where the team was under Todd Nelson, it seems the systems McLellan is implementing are operating at a comparable rate to those of Eakins in 2013-14.
Under Eakins in 2014-15, the Oilers showed massive improvements defensively in restricting attempts and scoring chances in the first 31 games, comparable to what Bylsma and Babcock accomplished in their first full years in Buffalo and Toronto. Horrible goaltending ruined whatever progress was made, though. When Nelson took over a run and gun mentality returned and little attention to defensive detail remained.
*data courtesy War-On-Ice.com and Corsica.Hockey*
THE LESSON
While Edmonton has a significant lead on Buffalo and Toronto in acquiring top end offensive talent at the NHL draft in recent years, the prospect pools for all three clubs are relatively well stocked at this point.
Edmonton has the skill and the offensive depth to continue developing a high scoring offence in the future. What remains a concern is their lack of attention to detail on the defensive side of the puck. We should expect the next stage of the Oilers rebuild to focus on that area.
Buffalo has taken massive strides defensively, and will likely continue to improve as Rasmus Ristolainen grows into his role as a top pair blueliner. The offence should improve with a full year or two from Ryan O’Reilly and Evander Kane alongside the developing Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart.
Toronto looks to be in the best all-around shape of the three teams in terms of structure and underlying play. But the Leafs do lack top-end talent in finishing ability and goaltending, though both areas should improve purely through regression for the players already on the roster and the injection of more skilled youth.
The future is bright for all three of these franchises. It can just be hard to tell from where they currently sit.