The First Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs has essentially concluded. Six of the eight matchups ended this week and over the weekend, the final two matchups will also wrap up. With the First Round in the books, it’s easy to look back at how some teams were able to win. After some early impressions, it is important to cap off the week of games in some sense. Moreover, there are some takeaways that any fan would have after watching the First Round. What are some keys to winning a Cup? What are some attributes that ultimately fail to contribute to a Cup run?
Great Coaching is Subjective
One interesting cliché you hear about successful teams is that they have great coaching. For any sport, you hear about a team that is successful as a well-coached team. The interesting part about the NHL is that there aren’t great coaches per see or specifically a coach can be great one season and regarded as terrible or even fired the next season. Columbus Blue Jackets fans can easily point to John Tortorella as a coach that has been successful in the NHL but after one terrible season, was fired. Even Darryl Sutter, who too the Los Angeles Kings to two Stanley Cup Championships, was fired a few seasons later. The examples are numerous and this season, we can point to many of the teams left in the playoffs as “well-coached” but it’s unclear if we can definitively say that.
The issue, specifically with the NHL, is that some coaches bring a skillset that only translates well to a certain team. Innovative coaches, that can teach disciplined defense or how to execute on a power play, oftentimes will be able to help a team that needs that. The problem for those types of coaches is when the strategy fails to translate to the players on the roster. Likewise, there are motivational coaches that bring energy to the locker room, but oftentimes, can be miserable coaches to play for (a likely explanation for the Sutter-led Flames). For all types of coaches, things can get stale, opponents catch on to innovation. What might work for a team one day, doesn’t the next. In the current Stanely Cup Playoffs, it’s not about the teams that have great coaches, rather, about the teams where the coach fits with the team.
Playoff Goaltending differs from Regular Season Goaltending
The First Round brought a spotlight to goaltending, primarily in the awful sense. Many of the goalies that struggled in the First Round had good or even great regular seasons. The ultimate lesson from the games is that a good regular season goaltender is different from a playoff one but there has to be a reasonable explanation. The idea that a goalie suddenly gains magical powers and rally a team in the playoffs has to be insane (if a goalie had that talent all along, why were they squandering it the whole season?), rather a goalie can play well for a long stretch and win a Cup regardless of the circumstances. Likewise, a goalie that had a Vezina-caliber season didn’t suddenly get worse. So how do we explain the differences?
The first thing that stands out is the coaching or planning for the playoff games. Take Tristan Jarry for example, a goalie that had a great season but had some weaknesses on glove-side shots. Jarry was exposed constantly by the Islanders in the First Round once they knew he couldn’t make the glove save. This can be applied to many of the goalies that struggled, details in their game that the opponent constantly went after. Another important thing to consider is who the goalie was able to play well against. A good goalie can take advantage of weaker offenses and terrible teams within their division. The problem for these types of goalies is when they are required to suddenly stop one of the best offenses in the game multiple times. The First Round brought to light some goalies that looked better in large part because of the weaker opponents.
Depth Scoring but also Veteran Scoring
Scoring depth is key to any team being successful in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. When good defenses can eliminate the top lines, the backend needs to step up. Depth is vital to a team’s success, something that stood out, especially in the Hurricanes-Predators series was the veteran depth. Both those teams had veteran skaters on the second or third line that added goals when their team needed them. There a multiple ways a team can find scoring depth, with young skaters that bring stamina to the lineup or even teams with great puck movement. In the First Round, we were reminded of the importance of having those that can find openings or great bounces. The Maple Leafs brought in Joe Thornton and Jason Spezza with this solely in mind, find a veteran scoring presence on the backend.
Defensemen Win Series
This is a given and we were reminded of this once again. Defense wins championships, in all sports. For hockey, there are multiple facets of the game that can be affected by great defensemen. In the First Round, we saw the importance of a scoring defenseman, like the ones the Avalanche, Bruins, and Lightning possess. We also saw how a bigger defenseman can throw an opponent off their rhythm, with hard hits and tough play. Then there are the defensemen that can do it all, they are hard to find but have unprecedented value to their teams. Ultimately, the teams with the best defense, in all three pairings are the most successful in their playoff runs.
