These days it seems as though fans and analysts have reached a consensus on the proper way NHL teams should be operating that I believe has, in recent years, twisted away from the original logic. This concept is that, in the NHL, you either want to be a Stanley Cup contender or bad enough to draft at the top of the board in the off-season, so you can acquire the type of elite, game-breaking talent that can help you be a Cup contender when it’s your team’s time.
One of hockey’s most colourful and experienced individuals is Brian Burke, a man for whom I’ve got a great deal of respect. In our brief time working together hosting a radio show, he used to put this concept into a simple turn of phrase, something like “In the NHL, you either need to be getting good fast, or getting bad fast.”
The mushy middle is the worst for everyone involved, right? It felt like the Minnesota Wild lived around the league’s middle forever, never really contending for the Cup, but never drafting high enough to get the types of special players who kept eliminating them from the playoffs. The Nashville Predators saw a Cup Final, but by and large have spent most of their time being just…pretty OK, with some great D-men and goalies in their past, but just a handful of players with Hall of Fame credentials. Along the way the fans rarely felt they were favourites, they were rarely on pins and needles waiting for the next generational talent, and they were just hoping for one of those lucky runs that sometimes happen in hockey.
That’s not to denigrate those franchises, who’ve done something noble: they’ve tried to win (gasp!) even when it’s looked fairly clear they weren’t among the league’s five or even 10 best. Every team should be doing that (for the good of the product), but because of the league’s incentive system, we’ve been left with “either get good or bad fast.”
It has become so accepted that the “mushy middle” is the worst-case scenario that my guy Micah Blake McCurdy of HockeyViz.com tracks the “sadness rankings” throughout the season, which highlights teams that should make their fans the most sad, in that they’re neither threats to make the playoffs nor to get into the top-five of the draft lottery (Vancouver comes to mind, of late).
But the thing with the mushy middle is that it isn’t always so bad, or to be desperately avoided. It depends where you’re coming from.
My general contention against teams willingly “getting bad fast” over the past decade is that it can be harder to dig out of a hole you intentionally put yourself in than you think (“digging out of holes” is generally a challenging exercise). In a sport like hockey, where the best players are only on the ice 30-45 per cent of the game, drafting even three great players over a few years simply may not be enough.
The Edmonton Oilers bottomed out for a painful length of time, finishing no better than third (out of five) in the Northwest Division from 2001-02 to 2012-13, when they went to the Pacific Division and … bottomed out there for a couple more seasons, too (there was one bright year in there for them, in 2006, but otherwise it was mostly ugly). The Buffalo Sabres tanked hard for Connor McDavid (or Jack Eichel), weren’t good before that, and now haven’t seen the playoffs since 2010-11.
Even teams that have pulled themselves out of it like the Los Angeles Kings, or even the Detroit Red Wings (maybe?) or Ottawa Senators (maybe?) have seen it’s hard to climb back to level.
Climbing back to the middle, to the much-maligned condition of mediocrity, and to playoff-but-not-Cup contender is a good thing, it’s progress. For teams that “got bad fast” and even those that got stuck there for a while, having a couple seasons picking 15th in the draft or wherever is not failure, nor is it the worst case scenario.
It’s extremely rare to do what the odd team pulls off – like this past year’s New Jersey Devils – in going from “pretty bad” to “legit contender” one year to the next, as it takes near-perfect circumstances. In recent history we’ve seen two teams make huge strides year over year: The Devils went from seventh in their division to second (from the 2021-22 season to the next), and the Oilers went from seventh to second a few seasons prior (2018-19 to 2019-20). Over the past 20 years only one team has climbed more standings spots in their division (the 2014-15 Islanders) in one year – it so rarely happens.
More typically, teams have to find their way back from the depths of despair first. The Colorado Avalanche stunk for a while, going from a pretty poor .500 record in 2015-16 to a worse record of 22-56-4 the next season. In 2017-18 they got better, but weren’t Cup contenders. They got above .500 and finished fourth in their division, made the playoffs, and got eliminated in the first round. It was their step back to contending. They won playoff rounds in each of their next three seasons before winning the Cup in 2022.
The Los Angeles Kings finished eighth in the Pacific in 2018-19, then seventh the next season, then sixth, and then they decided to go in and get more aggressive on the turnaround. They started trading for players like Viktor Arvidsson and Phillip Danault, which gave their drafted prospects some pros to develop around and play with. The past two seasons Los Angeles climbed up to third in their division, and now they’re rumoured to be tied to every big name player available, with a foundation on which they could add and really have a chance to go deep in the playoffs. The Kings had to fight back from the bottom to “OK” first, which involved some trades that made them better despite not yet being Cup contenders.
There are more examples. The Rangers finished eighth, sixth and seventh in their division before making moves that led to them climbing up to fifth and showed some progress. The next year (2021-22) they finished second in the Metro with 52 wins.
Even the Leafs had a year where they jumped from the bottom to fourth in their division (2016-17), where they weren’t really Cup hopefuls, and weren’t going to pick high, but it was a step towards having new expectations.
I lay out all these teams simply to note that “sadness” on the sadness scale, or the “mushy middle,” is more usually necessary for teams that’ve been bad, with fans that are sick of not trying to win.
I don’t know if the Red Wings or the Sabres are going to be “great” next season, but I know that they’ve clearly elevated themselves from the bottom of the league and sit in a position to try to win hockey games again.
I’ve mostly left out Ottawa along the way here, because they deserve some special attention. They’ve finished at the bottom of their division for years, starting in 2017-18 where they finished seventh. Then it was eighth, seventh, sixth and seventh again before finding their way back up to sixth. But in tracking the progress of these teams that eventually “get OK” before competing, the Senators are right on the precipice. Maybe the ownership conundrum hurts their ability to do what they need to this off-season, but this past season was their first above .500 going back to that 2017-18 year, and they finished 2022-23 with a 39-35-8 record in a tough division. They should view that as their stepping stone to contending for more, despite a “lost year” in terms of playoffs or high picks.
For fans of awful teams, it’s time to shake the stigma of being mediocre. Top picks don’t always pan out, and losing is still losing. If you ask me, it’s more fun to root for wins and fall short than it is to want your team to “get bad fast.”
Most teams can’t climb to the top step of the ladder from the bottom without hitting a few other rungs on the way there. Rooting for your team to be “OK” and to max out on the “sadness” charts should, in some way, provide a level of happiness.