THE REBUILD MODEL
Reduce team payroll as much as possible.
Trade high-priced and valuable players for draft picks
Take on other teams bad contracts for picks and prospects.
Tank the team to acquire lottery picks.
Build the core of your team through the early picks of the draft
Fill in the bottom-end holes of your roster from within by developing your own talent
Identify and acquire "insulating" character and role players
Trade assets to acquire premium quality depth
Stay away from unrestricted free agency, except for unsigned prospects
finding franchise #1 centers is the hardest position to acquire/develop in the league. They are mostly drafted in the top 10 of the draft, are rarely traded or hit UFA.
Compare that to 1D or 1G's, elite centers tend to be identified earlier and tend to be drafted near the top. So, unless you have constant top 10 picks or pick top 2 or 3 in a great draft, finding one through other means is insanely difficult.
Heck, you can't EVEN compete for the cup with a superstar C alone and a Hayes as your 2C. Multiple teams now have generational talents as their 1C with fringe-generational talents as 2C. See: Penguins, Oilers, Leafs. Then you have Tampa, Nashville, and Winnipeg with two high-end 1Cs down the middle and absolutely crazy stacked on D and wings. Those are basically your routes to the Cup now.
THE MISSING PIECE MYTH
You win with strength. The strongest team (at playing hockey) usually wins. The team that has the best players who play the best win.
Every year, it seems that about four teams add the “missing piece” and a fifth wins the cup. That is not to say that deadline deals cannot make a difference. Sometimes they do, but usually they do not.
There are no final pieces. Teams cannot do anything to guarantee a cup victory. A team can increase their chances of winning by increasing their strengths. This is different from trying to cover up all weaknesses. Every team has weaknesses. There is no need to pay a lot in a trade to grab a player if he is merely covering up a weakness without creating a strength. Teams that do this usually fail.
CAN’T BUILD SC CONTENDER THROUGH UFA
you cannot build a team through free agency. The talent pool is not strong enough. It is too thin, too expensive and too old.
probably the least effective method. The unrestricted free agent talent pool is not good enough to rebuild a team and the high profile players signed will usually sign large contracts that make it hard to fit many under the salary cap.
However, it is the fastest method to make a change.
WHY YOU CAN’T BUILD THROUGH FREE AGENCY
You cannot build a team through free agency, in part, because it’s too expensive. You need players on your roster who out produce their contracts and there are very few candidates to do that this season on this roster.
You also cannot build a team through free agency because, for the most part, these are older players who are locked up in multi-year contracts that will keep them throughout the decline phase of their careers. Not only is it a poor strategy for that reason. It is an impossible strategy due to economics.
I would argue that for the most part you don’t build a team through free agency. Of course every team will have some free agents under this CBA (and some might be valued players), it is impossible not to if you want to keep a full roster of NHL calibre players, but any good team had their core develop internally (whether it was drafted or otherwise obtained).
The point is no average to bad team will suddenly become a good team by signing free agents.
BUILDING A TEAM USING GVS
(Aug 2010)
A team composed of young and restricted free agents, stay-at-home defensemen, players of smaller stature and assorted reclamation projects are very well positioned to compete in this new era
Cap-conscious teams will check the back of a defenseman’s jersey and avoid writing too many zeroes unless they see “Lidstrom.” A lot of these guys are excellent examples of why you don’t want to lock down into long-term contracts, especially when a player is still an RFA.
Put it this way – if a player isn’t going to get a regular shift in a postseason situation, then you probably shouldn’t pay them much more than the league minimum (if that!).
Teams need to be on the lookout for undervalued players, like the younger, smaller players, stay-at-home defensemen and various reclamation projects, while trying to avoid long-term, high-priced contracts, especially in the net.
PLAYERS WORTH BY POSITION (2 ARTICLES)
(April 2011)
Approximately 40% of offensive production can be attributed to the two defensemen on the ice and the defensemen are more important than the wingers.
Of the three forward positions, the center position is clearly the most important
Forwards were allocated 59.1% of a teams payroll, defense 32.2% and goaltending 8.7% over the past 4 seasons which compares to 54.9%, 36.8% and 8.3% for my ratings. That would mean that forwards are overpaid (relative to their contribution) by about 4.1%, defense under paid by 4.6% and goalies over paid by about 0.4%.
(May 2011)
forwards have a greater ability to influence offensive production than defensemen which is no surprise.
Defensively the greatest variation in HARD+ occurs for centers
It is possible centers rank ahead of wingers and defensemen in part because they are the ones who take face offs and thus are a major factor in the team gaining control of the puck.
For the three forward positions it is clear that the top offensive players get the most playing time while players who get less playing time are slightly better defensive players.
The question is, how much does coaching/playing style influence the results.
For defensemen the best offensive defensemen still get the most ice time, though the variation is much less than seen with the forwards. Defensive ability seems to have very little variation across ice times until you get to the lower minute players who appear to be more defensive specialists.
MAXIMIZING OFFENSIVE OUTPUT BY SPREADING TOI
If one plays the first line 12.5 minutes (rather than 14.42), the second line plays 12 (rather than 12.83), the third line stays the same, and the fourth line plays 11 minutes, then the expected goal differential can be improved upon.
Teams, by and large, would be better off playing their top-12 players overall, and more evenly distributing even-strength ice time.
HOW TO BUILD A CONTENDER (4 ARTICLES)
Looking at playoff success, the vast majority of playoff contenders in recent years have excelled by this metric, usually as a result of having two to three players who achieve an elite GAR rating.
If you want to compete for the Stanley Cup all you need to do is acquire a cumulative team GAR of over 107. Simple right?
In a salary capped league teams need to pay attention to, and understand how, the aging process impacts future performance, since these factors can and should influence contract decisions. A bad bet on a player whose performance is declining can cripple a team’s cap structure for years to come.
On average, both forwards and defensemen are in their prime between 22 and 26. Goalies are more or less the same, but their peak extends to about 29.
Generally teams who don’t hit the 107 GAR (18 WAR) threshold rarely contend for the cup
Virtually every team who has made it to the conference finals in the last 5 years had both an over 20 GAR (3.5 WAR) elite player, and at least one 15-20 GAR (2.5 – 3.0 WAR) star to complement them.
in order to have a legitimate shot at winning the Stanley Cup, you really need to have a team capable of accumulating a higher (i.e. over 100) goals against replacement, and that the teams that successfully surpass this threshold do so because of they have one or more elite players on their roster.
8 RULES TO BUILD A CONTENDER
(May 26, 2016)
That’s the key to building a consistent Cup contender: establish a core and surround them with cheap and competent depth. If you look around the league, most teams are following a similar blueprint.
Most cores are comprised of two centers, two D-men, a winger, another forward, and a goalie. There’s exceptions to how it’s done, but that’s the usual template.
1. The most important thing is a No. 1 center
2. Your No. 1 center needs an elite wingman
3. You definitely need an elite No. 1 D-man, but don’t stress too hard on the No. 2 guy
4. He doesn’t have to be elite, but you usually need a strong second line center
5. Goaltending doesn’t matter as much as you think
6. The average contender has four elite players and at least one other very good player
7. A solid core is more important than depth, but depth is more important than any one player
8. What separates the champions from the maybe-next-years? Centers, depth and goaltending
· The biggest difference between those that advanced to the final and those that lost was depth. Cup finalists got 6.2 wins out of their depth while the conference finalists got just 4.4. That’s a huge factor and is perhaps the most important lesson for building a winner: your core can be great, but you need quality players complementing them. The difference in depth is bigger than the difference in average core talent.
· In net, the Cup finalists were more likely to have an elite or very good goalie.
MARGINAL GAINS FOR FORWARDS
Moving from a 55th percentile player to 60th percentile player on the top line will improve a team’s goal differential by about twice that of a 2nd or 3rd line player.
What is interesting is that the marginal gains in improving a 2nd line player and 3rd line player is about equal.
MARGINAL GAINS ON DEFENSE
The difference between the top and middle pair is pretty negligible.
What's interesting is that the value of the top 4 defense is more than the value of the top two forward lines.
This suggest improvement should be concentrated for top forward line, followed by the top-four defenders, and then middle-six forwards with the bottom pair last.
STRONG & WEAK LINKS
One frequent prioritization question is high-end quality vs. depth. How much should a team focus on the very top of its lineup vs. ensuring it has adequate depth? Should a team maximize its strengths or minimize its weaknesses?
· Hockey is a strong link game, i.e., the team with the best player usually wins
· Therefore, teams should prioritize acquiring the very best elite talent, even at the cost of having weaker depth than opponents
· This is important for roster construction now and has the potential to become even more important as teams get better at assessing talent and market inefficiencies become less common
It is better to spread out top players on different lines rather than putting them together. That suggests that individual matchups are also strong link games, and it is best to have as strong a player as possible on the ice at all times.
IDENTIFYING PLAYER TYPES WITH CLUSTERING
playing a team’s best players throughout a lineup is preferable to loading up a top line.
hockey being a strong link game – having the best players throughout your lineup increases the chances of winning.
Teams are incentivized to spread their best players throughout their lineup. This is due to a fact that a team can only have so much success with a stacked line
The final piece is identifying which players can complement those elite forwards the best.
This is a natural continuation of DTM’s and Alex’s work on optimal roster construction by filling in and identifying those middle-six type forwards to pair with the elite play-drivers.
There is a synergistic effect here: for example, it makes sense to want to play a net-rushing garbage-goal winger with skilled players to maximize his skill set.
. In theory, a team could have two Playmakers, two Shooters, and fill in the rest of the roster with Balanced types and never go below an expected goal differential of 50%.
ROSTER POSITION VALUE IN BUILDING A TEAM
(Aug 2018)
low performing teams have less roster depth than high performing teams,
The roster positions with the greatest marginal differential, in terms of additional wins, is the positions of top four defensemen.
the value of a forward is greater than the value of a defenceman, regarding five-on-five play.
Results indicated that an increase in the quality of centers increased the win probability of a team the most.
IS HOCKEY A STRONG OR WEAK LINK SPORT
The top end players (ca. top 5%) and the bottom players (ca. bottom 5%) have relatively greater impacts on the game than the other 90% of the forwards.
There seem to be a smaller percentage of elite defenders (ca. 3%) and a larger percentage of bad defensemen – the slope starts at around 85%.
The second thing you see, is that 60% of the goaltenders are above average. So the bad goalies are worse than the good goalies are good. Bad goaltending can really kill a team.
Is Hockey A Strong Or Weak Link Game?
The data indicates that having a top heavy forward group is better than having great forward depth with no star players.
The top end defensemen are less dominant than the top end forwards, and the worst defenders have a greater negative impact than the worst forwards. I think you could argue having D-depth is at least as important as having an elite defenseman.
D-depth is more important than top end quality.
IS NHL A STRONG LINK GAME
The best players in the league absolutely have an increased impact on the game, but the same can be said for the worst players.
Bad players have less impact while the good players have more impact. This is because coaches are pretty good at evaluating forwards, so the good forwards play a lot, while the bad forwards have limited roles – As it should be.
There is a small elite tier of players that has an incredible impact on the game, but I still think you still need a good balance. A few really bad apples can completely off set an elite player.
Overall, I think depth on defense is more important than depth on forwards, since you can easier hide a bad forward.
THIRD WHEELS AND DEPTH
(Nov 17, 2020)
It’s just tougher to translate those entries & shots into goals when you’re the guy driving the line instead of just the third wheel.
carrying the puck in & making a quick play. Those opportunities are limited in a 60 minute game, especially with how much emphasis there is on defending the rush now so it essentially ends up being a wasted possession when it doesn’t work