[Enoch Root]

It is a common argument that teams need to pick top 4 (or top 3, or whatever) in order to win the cup. And it is often quoted that almost every cup winner has top 4 picks on the roster (well yeah, because almost every team has top 4 picks on their roster), so I thought I would run some numbers.

In order to try and minimize bias, I chose a 20-year drafting period (1999-2018), with a 5-year lag for cup winners (2004-2023). First, I summed the total number of top 4 picks during the first period, then correlated that against the cup winners from the second period. Some findings:

Average number of picks: 2.58
Correlation: 0.036 -no correlation whatsoever
Most picks: FLA:7, WIN: 7, EDM: 6, CBJ: 6 - zero cups between them!
Fewest picks: DET: 0, SJS: 0, VGS: 0 - two cups between them
There were 6 more teams with 1 pick, 2 cups (ANA and BOS), so 20% of the cups were won by teams with 1 or 0 top 4 picks

CHI (3 picks, 3 cups), PIT (4 and 3) and TBL (4 and 3) are the examples that support the argument, but I think what we're really seeing here are the 3 examples where teams managed to acquire significant elite talent. And it isn't about the number of picks, it's about the good fortune of having several elite talents gel together, because the counter-argument is that the 4 teams with the most picks have had no success at all.

I then decided to weight the picks (because a 1OA is worth more than a 4OA) giving 4 pts to a 1OA, 3 to a 2OA, 2 for a 3OA and 1 for a 4th, and re-ran the correlation. This time there was some correlation, at 0.125 - but still not very significant, but at least something. The teams with the most pts were as follows:

WIN (and ATL): 20, 0 cups
EDM: 19, 0
FLA: 16, 0
PIT: 14, 3
CBJ: 12, 0
TBL, 11, 3
COL: 10, 1
BUF: 10, 0

And at the other end:
DET: 0, 1
SJS: 0, 0
VGS: 0, 1
CGY: 1, 0
NAS: 2, 0
NYR: 1, 0
DAL: 2, 0

This all begged the question: what if I use the top 3 picks? And the correlations were as follows (first with the number of picks, then valuing the top picks more): 0.168 and 0.167, so they were a little higher. Not sure if that tells us anything new, however.

Then I did the top 2 picks: 0.171 and 0.152

Then just the 1OAs: 0.105

All of this suggests that there is only the weakest of cases that more high draft picks will increase your odds of winning the cup (almost no evidence at all). Certainly not enough to make a tear-down a very enticing argument, either for the fans or the organization.