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What NHL teams can learn from the Stanley Cup Final
Teams around the NHL watch the Stanley Cup Final closely with an eye on what they can learn to aid their team-building efforts.
Considering that more than half the teams in the NHL (17) have a Stanley Cup droughts lasting 20-plus years, it's safe to say plenty of franchises have found the championship-winning formula to be elusive.
That's why every year, when the spotlight shines on a new champion, that team is dissected in an effort to see how they cracked the code. The Vegas Golden Knights are a bit of an unusual case because their first season was just six years ago and their roster is built on the foundation of an expansion draft.
While that makes some of what they've done impossible to replicate, there are still aspects of how this team was constructed that other squads should take note of.
The importance of forward depth
The Seattle Kraken made waves earlier in the playoffs boasting a forward group with talent evenly dispersed between its lines, and the Golden Knights have similarly enviable depth.
Although Vegas has some top performers like Jack Eichel and Mark Stone, there are other teams who can match them star-for-star up front. What differentiates Vegas is that it has three lines that are potent offensively, and a capable fourth unit that earned a 55.46% expected goal share at 5-on-5 in the playoffs.
The team's most common third line in the postseason — Reilly Smith, William Karlsson, and Michael Amadio — combined for 56 goals and 136 points during the regular season. In the playoffs, that trio generated 20 goals and 41 points in 22 games.
Getting production like that from a bottom-six group is rare, and it helped drive the Golden Knights' success. Finding secondary scoring is easier said than done, but NHL teams relying on one or two lines to carry a massive offensive load may second guess themselves this offseason.
Aggressive moves for stars
In recent seasons, the Golden Knights have been throwing caution to the wind when top-of-the-roster players become available.
Erik Brännström was an extremely well-regarded prospect when Vegas made him the centrepiece of the Stone deal. Prying Eichel from the Buffalo Sabres required relinquishing Alex Tuch, who had five years left on a contract with a reasonable $4.75 million AAV — and another top prospect in Peyton Krebs. Alex Pietrangelo's $8.8 million cap hit might become a problem as he gets deeper into his thirties, but they outbid the rest of the NHL on the top-pair defenseman in free agency.
Although he's no longer with the team, getting Max Pacioretty from the Montreal Canadiens is another example of the Golden Knights' willingness to aggressively pursue top players, even if the price is steep.
Tuch is thriving in Buffalo, Nick Suzuki has become the Canadiens captain, and Krebs could easily break out in the years to come. None of that matters to a Golden Knights team that got their hands on Lord Stanley's mug.
Bodies in the net
The Golden Knights' goaltending situation has been convoluted all year, but the team's willingness to keep adding to the position group paid off.
Vegas is lucky to have gotten the production it did from Adin Hill, but the team deserves credit for acquiring him prior to the season when Robin Lehner went down. The Golden Knights could have justifiably rolled with a Logan Thompson-Laurent Broissot combo, but they decided to keep adding.
Bringing in Jonathan Quick at the trade deadline was a dart throw to help the team weather some injuries, but there was a chance he could've pulled a Sergei Bobrovsky and found his form from previous years to make an impact.
With goaltender performance so difficult to predict, the Golden Knights made concerted efforts to ensure they had plenty of options — hoping one would get hot at the right time. That strategy paid off.
The idea of having a single elite netminder will always be seductive, but there's more than one way to approach the position.
Size on the blue line
Agents for hulking free-agent defensemen like Ryan Graves and Scott Mayfield have to be thrilled with the outcome of the Stanley Cup Final.
The size of the Golden Knights' defence corps was remarked upon a number of times throughout the playoffs, and for good reason. Vegas' top-six defenders didn't include a player listed under 197 pounds, and their average blueliner weighed in at 212.3 pounds.
Those players weren't bruisers lacking skill and skating ability, but rather players whose size helped them weather the physical toll of a deep playoff run and wield longer, more disruptive sticks. This group's ability to absorb contact was undoubtedly useful against a Panthers team known for its forechecking and physicality.
Teams around the NHL aren't going to reconfigure their entire rosters to import big defenseman, but the success Vegas had emphasizing bulk on the back end may be top of mind for a few GMs when they do their free-agent shopping — and even as they put together their draft boards.
