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Proven Anatomy of a Champion - My Essay

Jul. 5, 2022 at 8:17 p.m.
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C,mon Leafs...Please
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(Started this a LONG time ago. Nothing has changed so I figured I would finally post it)

TL;DR
No team in over 2 decades has won the Cup with a player having an AAV over $10 MIL or 3 roster players with each making over 13% of the Cap. Can the Leafs be the 1st in the history of the NHL?

******************************************************************************************************

Not sure if the Leafs will ever win the Cup due to the proven team template of the past Stanley Cup Champions.

SOME OF THE RESEARCH:
https://theathletic.com/2077279/2020/09/21/cup-checklist-analyzing-the-rosters-from-the-last-decade-of-champions/
https://www.si.com/hockey/news/eight-simple-rules-for-building-a-stanley-cup-contender
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1624542-anatomy-of-a-stanley-cup-champion

The problem is the distribution of the Cap. Until last season's bizarre pandemic divisions... which allowed a struggling MTL to qualify for the playoffs... a team with a player making $10 MIL AAV has NEVER won a round (!) let alone won the Cup. NEVER!!!

***Here is what they discovered with only 2 or 3 exceptions in the last 20+ years...yup 2 over decades *** **2022 edit:Colorado proved it again this season. **

(?=not sure, ??=don't think so, ???=not really)

Elite first-line centre that’s among the very best players in the world. (Matthews)
Elite first-line winger to support the elite centre. (Marner)
Top-line centre to play behind the elite centre. (Tavares?)
Two other top-line wingers on each of the top two lines. (Nylander, Kerfoot?)

Two more top-six forwards for depth in the middle six. (Bunting?, Mikheyev?)

Elite No. 1 defenceman. (Rielly??? not really)
A second No. 1 defenceman to play behind him. (Muzzin?? Really should be Rielly)
A top pairing defenceman to help anchor a strong second pair with the No. 2. (TJ Brodie)
Another top-pairing calibre defender to crush soft minutes on the third pair. (Holl?? Not really). **2022 edit: Hopefully that's Giodano**

A top 10 calibre starting goaltender. (Campbell? I think he is) **2022 edit:No starting goalie is currently under contract**

And that’s without mentioning two capable third-liners, (Kampf, Kase)
another steady top four defenceman who can play on the top pair, (??, Really should be Muzzin)
and making sure no one on the fourth line is replacement level (Spezza, Engvall, Simmonds) **2022 edit:Spezza's gone, Engvall should be on 3rd line**
or bottom D pair is replacement level. (Dermott?, Sandin? Holl?)

People have compared Leaf salaries to other players in the league on teams who NEVER win Cups: Buffalo, Edmonton, San Jose, etc. Needing the depth to win 4 playoff series and the Stanley Cup also means a team needs CAP SPACE. Not even McDavid can overcome this simple fact as the greatest hockey player in the world currently (no offense to our Matthews).

Colorado:
Great Contract Top Forward (Kadri $4.5)/ Elite Center (MacKinnon $6.3) / Elite RW (Rantanen $9.25)
Reclamation/Breakout Player (Nickuskin $2.5)) / Top Center (Landeskog $7.0) / Top Forward (Burakovsky $4.9)
Reclamation Player (Aubé-Kubel $1.075) / 3rd Line C (Compher $3.5) / 3rd Line W (Lehkonen $1.15 *$2.3 50% ret*)
ELC (Newhook $0.908) / Bridge (O'Connor $0.75) / VET (Cogliano $0.5 *$1.0 50% ret* or Helm $1.0)
+ depth forwards
Elite Dman (Makar $9.0) / 2nd #1 (Toews $4,1)
Top Pair D (Girard $5.0)/ Solid Dman (Manson $2.05 *$4.2 50% ret*)
ELC (Byram $0.894) / 3rd Pair Dman (E Johnson $6.0)
+ depth dmen


What should the Leafs be? Last season's playoffs we had basically the same kind of lineup except the ELC forward. Next season I still have no idea.

If you built a team like the last 20 + Stanley Cup winners I suggest you would say Matthews should be around $10 MIL aav or 12.1 % of Cap and Marner around $9.5 which their current contract differences are not insurmountable but is basically $3,0 MIL. In comparison Crosby was 14,5% or $11.8 MIL compared to today's $81.5 Cap and Malkin was 14.77% or would be $12.04 of today's $81.5 Cap.

The most glaring cap issue is the 2nd line C. $4.0 MIL over which really affects the team's depth considerably. But....Tavares didn't cost draft picks or players to acquire which must be taken into account as well though. Taking that into account compared to the cost TBay, Colorado, etc have paid to acquire top talent and maybe he is worth $9 or $9,5 MIL...maybe even the $11 MIL. If you feel the core 4 are over paid a combined amount of around $7 MIL... then you could have added a star like Landeskog to the forward depth....

But also look at other great teams that struggled, San Jose, Ottawa, Washington (for years), and even Florida this year that were built solid from top to bottom. Not sure the realistic approach to give the Leafs the best chance as a great team who still might never win. The kicker is they seem close but I feel they are still not quite there.
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Jul. 6, 2022 at 1:18 p.m.
#2
Ovchinnikov 137
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They just had greatest single season in Franchise history.
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The Leafs should not move anyone for the sake of simply making moves, but there is absolutely a conversation to be had about shaking up the roster to improve the defense, goaltending, or to give the forward group a different look. There is a path to running it back and moving out other money to fill out the roster.

The secondary-scoring problem at playoff time has been this teams achilles heel. In the playoffs, the Leafs’ bottom six – which included some combination of Ilya Mikheyev, Pierre Engvall, David Kampf, Ondrej Kase, Colin Blackwell, Jason Spezza, Kyle Clifford, and Wayne Simmonds – combined for three goals, and Mikheyev scored two empty netters. Tampa Bay’s bottom six of Ross Colton, Nick Paul, Branden Hagel, Corey Perry, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, and Patrick Maroon combined for 10 goals (no empty netters).

Against MTL, the Leafs’ bottom six contributed four goals – Jason Spezza scored three of them, and one came when he moved into the top six. Joe Thornton scored the other on the power play.

In the year before against Columbus in the play in tournament, the only bottom-six forward (in terms of time on ice) to score at all was Nick Robertson.

This has been a consistent problem for three years running under this management team, how to support the core players with better scoring options.

And yes a team lives and dies by its star players, the gap is tight come playoff time and even the top teams need every single player rolling. Case in point, Ondrej Palat (3 goals), Ross Colton (3 goals), Corey Perry (2 goals), Nick Paul (2 goals), Patrick Maroon (1 goal), Anthony Cirelli (1 goal), Brandon Hagel (1 goal), Pierre-Edouard Bellemare (1 goal). Now the Leafs, David Kämpf (2 goals), Ilya Mikheyev (2 empty net goals), Michael Bunting (1 goal), Colin Blackwell (1 goal), Alexander Kerfoot (1 goal), Wayne Simmonds (0 goals), Jason Spezza (0 goals), Ondrej Kase (0 goals), Pierre Engvall (0 goals).

The secondary core is the biggest question mark for the Leafs that NEEDs to improve.

Washington ran a core featuring Alex Ovechkin, Nik Backstrom, John Carlson, Dmitri Orlov, and Braden Holtby for six years before finally winning in year seven. The secondary core at the beginning of their window featured players such as Alex Semin, Marcus Johansson, Brooks Laich, Dennis Wideman, and Troy Brouwer. When they eventually won, the secondary group was completely replaced by Evgeny Kuznetsov, Tom Wilson, TJ Oshie, Lars Eller, and Matt Niskanen.

By the time Tampa Bay eventually broke through, the Lightning had added players like Yanni Gourde, Blake Coleman, and Barclay Goodrow, while Erik Cernak and Mikhail Sergachev matured into significant contributors. If we want to look at the Tampa Bay teams from the beginning of the decade that featured Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman (along with players like Alex Killorn, Ondrej Palat, and Tyler Johnson) as the original core, by the time they won, Brayden Point and Alexei Vasilevskiy were developed as well. Now they just went out and added Paul and Hagel. The Leafs have yet to be able to create a third line that can really score.

This team is sooooooooo close. The three positions of need for the organization that stand out are a goalie, a top-flight defenseman, and a top 6 LW (or move JT to LW and a new C). They need to move on from Mrazek, Kerfoot, and Muzzin. Moving out those contracts will give them plenty of cap space to re-mold the roster.

Bunting Matthews Marner
Tavares Player X Nylander (D.Strome, Copp, Järnkrok)
Robertson Player X Player X (Stastny, Blackwell, Kubalik)
Engvall Kampf Player X (Aston-Reese, Steeves, Holmberg)

Rielly Player X
Sandin Brodie
Giordano Liljegren
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Jul. 7, 2022 at 3:28 p.m.
#3
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C,mon Leafs...Please
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Quoting: MatthewsFan



This team is sooooooooo close. The three positions of need for the organization that stand out are a goalie, a top-flight defenseman, and a top 6 LW (or move JT to LW and a new C). They need to move on from Mrazek, Kerfoot, and Muzzin. Moving out those contracts will give them plenty of cap space to re-mold the roster.

Bunting Matthews Marner
Tavares Player X Nylander (D.Strome, Copp, Järnkrok)
Robertson Player X Player X (Stastny, Blackwell, Kubalik)
Engvall Kampf Player X (Aston-Reese, Steeves, Holmberg)

Rielly Player X
Sandin Brodie
Giordano Liljegren


I agree with that assessment 100%

I feel that Matthews and Bunting could play with any winger with a bit of passion. I also thought that Bunting and Marner's drive covered nicely for Tavares lack of speed and complemented his high hockey IQ and phenominal hand-eye coordination when Matthews was out.

So I would almost wonder if the 2nd line could be:

Bunting / Tavares / Marner

As much as I rag on Nylander in the AGM's I must admit that his 30+ goals a year would be difficult to replace.

LW UFA's might need to fill the Top 6 LW spot. Not sure who that would be. Wishing Mikheyev would finally fill that role but he appears to asking too much.

I have no idea who be the top RHD the Leafs should target...even in a fantasy.
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Jul. 8, 2022 at 6:19 a.m.
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Everything about your essay is flawed the moment you claim that no team has won a Stanley Cup with a 10 million dollar player while ignoring the following...
- no significant cap increase in two years (to ignore this is a glaring error... the difference in that lost cap space is literally the equivalent of Tampa being able to spend 9 million over the cap)
- ignoring the fact that Tampa Won two cups while using a roster significantly above the cap because of LTIR.
- Colorado has been able to take advantage of having a 10-12 million dollar player who signed a long term deal before anyone realized he was worth 10-12 million... that's just luck


As soon as a team wins the cup with a 10 million player, your entire premise breaks down. Considering that there is only 14 players in the league with a CAP HIT (not salary) at 10 million or more / season... and they only play on 9 different teams... 4 of which didn't even make the play-offs, this theory makes no sense. You might as well say if Mathews, Marner and Tavares were each paid 9.9 million a season the Leafs would be so much closer to winning a Stanley Cup... which is ludicrous.
So tell us... with the difference being roughly 3.5 million - what phenomenal 3.5 million in talent would have possibly won the Leafs the cup?
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Jul. 9, 2022 at 1:16 a.m.
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Quoting: X27
Everything about your essay is flawed the moment you claim that no team has won a Stanley Cup with a 10 million dollar player while ignoring the following...
- no significant cap increase in two years (to ignore this is a glaring error... the difference in that lost cap space is literally the equivalent of Tampa being able to spend 9 million over the cap)
- ignoring the fact that Tampa Won two cups while using a roster significantly above the cap because of LTIR.
- Colorado has been able to take advantage of having a 10-12 million dollar player who signed a long term deal before anyone realized he was worth 10-12 million... that's just luck


Adding to what was said by X27 here, teams like Colorado and Tampa had superstars that out perform their contract, basically shows that paying people based on their impact (i.e., giving the top players a large portion of their cap) would have worked had it not been for the flat cap. Which just means that now Tor needs to get lucky with their bottom 6 and other role players, and goaltending, so that they have players playing beyond their contracts. I wonder though why didn't Boston win recently (perhaps in 2019) with all those stars with 6m cap hits.

That being said their is no real formula to a winning team, any team that makes it to the post-season can win at the end of the day, but only one does each season. There are people being paid to analyze things because there are people paid to "build" winning teams. So, things are analyzed and aspects of championship teams are copied or people hope to copy (get yourself a Vesi, and now it's get yourself a Makar or both). In the end though, a series can be determined by a bad call, a missed call, a lucky bounce, or an untimely mistake. So, perhaps one day a team with a 10m+ AAV player will win but it's a matter of fortune.
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Jul. 12, 2022 at 3:11 p.m.
#6
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C,mon Leafs...Please
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Edited Jul. 12, 2022 at 3:25 p.m.
https://theathletic.com/3414564/2022/07/11/salary-cap-average-forwards-defensemen/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983

Well they are at it again and it looks bad for Toronto...although I think some of the averages for each position is a bit skewed.

It actually doesn't make sense though as the 12 core position adds up to $84.6 MIL. I think Dom is a bit nuts now that I see his model. He was the one I was reading that said the Leafs contracts to the core was GREAT because they were BELOW market value. Looking at his overall model now that is 10%+ over the Cap is idiotic in planning a team.
 
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