NHL Team Playoff Success In the Salary Cap Era

[Bingo]

Would love to see a team's future with some hard rules in place (this could never happen).

- Don't sign any outside UFAs over the age of 29, only sign at 29 and less if the term doesn't take them past 34
- Only extend your own pending UFAs for 5 years if they are 29, one year less for every year older, one year more for every year younger
- Move every pending UFA a year in advance unless the terms of an extension are agreed upon
- No trading 1st or 2nd round picks for existing players
- Don't fill your roster with veteran depth, use PTOs to judge your youth and only sign a PTO when the youth falls short

[tvp2003]

There have been (IMO) four noteworthy seasons in this team's entire 40-year existence:

- 1985/86 - Cinderella run to the Finals
- 1988/89 - Flames win the Cup!
- 2003/04 - Cinderella run to the Finals
- 2014/15 - Underdog team gets back into the Playoffs

You can guess what the common denominator is.

The President's Trophy in 1987/88? Meh.

Iggy's magical season in 2001/02? Okay.

Finishing first in the conference in 2018/19? Barf.

I'm not sure what my point is other than to say it's painful to cheer for this team. That is all.

[Jiri Hrdina]

I would add:
1980/81: First season in Calgary, advanced to semi-finals. Kent Nilsson with a magicl 131 point, 49 goal season.

It goes way back but it's on the list.

[tvp2003]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

I would add:
1980/81: First season in Calgary, advanced to semi-finals. Kent Nilsson with a magicl 131 point, 49 goal season.

It goes way back but it's on the list.

Ah yes. It was before my time, but I agree it’s on the list.

It’s funny to look back at some of those teams that aren’t on the list. So much discussion and/or consternation over players and teams that at the end of the day barely register on the history scale.

Edit: Maybe I’m just getting old and grumpy. Sigh...

[FireGilbert]

I'm counting the 2 division titles despite not being playoff successes. As a long suffering Flames fan I'll take any runs of winning hockey even if eventually fruitless.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Would love to see a team's future with some hard rules in place (this could never happen).

- Don't sign any outside UFAs over the age of 29, only sign at 29 and less if the term doesn't take them past 34
- Only extend your own pending UFAs for 5 years if they are 29, one year less for every year older, one year more for every year younger
- Move every pending UFA a year in advance unless the terms of an extension are agreed upon
- No trading 1st or 2nd round picks for existing players
- Don't fill your roster with veteran depth, use PTOs to judge your youth and only sign a PTO when the youth falls short

A rule I'd add, is that within the past 3 years, you must have drafted:
1 C in the 1st rd.
2 C's in the top 2 rds.
3 C's in the top 3 rds.

It's the hardest position to find.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

I would add:
1980/81: First season in Calgary, advanced to semi-finals. Kent Nilsson with a magicl 131 point, 49 goal season.

It goes way back but it's on the list.

I'll also add:

1983/84: First season in the Saddledome, took the Oilers to 7 games despite being heavy underdogs. No other team went the distance against Gretzky & Co. that year, and the whole city was pretty jazzed about it.

* * *

Part of the trouble is that the Flames' owners don't actually make money by getting the city jazzed, though it helps if it happens from time to time. From the beginning, their business model was based heavily on selling tickets to corporate buyers, so the fans and the paying customers were not necessarily the same people. Businesspeople will take their clients out to hockey games, or give out tickets as cookies for their staff, even if the team isn't very good; but as the late 1990s and early 2000s showed, they won't do it if the team is downright awful.

I think that way of doing business has left the Flames' organization especially reluctant to risk a rebuild and especially indifferent to their most enthusiastic supporters. The phrase ‘tier 2 fans’ has never been used by Flames' management, but in effect, that's what most of us have been, even if we did buy season tickets as individuals. ‘Tier 1’ mostly doesn't consist of fans at all; which is why the Saddledome has so often been compared to a library.

Somewhere in downtown Calgary in the spring of 2004, I am sadly sure, a group of local CFOs were drowning their sorrows in a bar very far from the Red Mile. I bet they were telling each other, ‘Do you know how much more we have to shell out to keep these tickets because the stupid Flames won a series again? Our whole cost-benefit calculation is going straight to hell. I just wish they'd hurry up and lose so my numbers could go back to normal.’

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

A rule I'd add, is that within the past 3 years, you must have drafted:
1 C in the 1st rd.
2 C's in the top 2 rds.
3 C's in the top 3 rds.

It's the hardest position to find.

The only trouble with that is that you don't always find centres by drafting centres. So many players are good enough to excel as centres in junior, but can't handle it in the NHL and have to be moved to the wings.

By the middle of the first round each year, the can't-miss prospects at C have usually been pretty well picked over. Then you have to choose between those players who will probably end up as wingers, and those who have so many warts in their game that they may never stick in the NHL at all. Some years, every centre picked after the top 5 is a crapshoot – and thanks to the lottery, even a team in a full-on rebuild needs some luck to pick in the top 5, as Flames fans know too well.

[Britflamesfan]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Would love to see a team's future with some hard rules in place (this could never happen).

- Don't sign any outside UFAs over the age of 29, only sign at 29 and less if the term doesn't take them past 34
- Only extend your own pending UFAs for 5 years if they are 29, one year less for every year older, one year more for every year younger
- Move every pending UFA a year in advance unless the terms of an extension are agreed upon
- No trading 1st or 2nd round picks for existing players
- Don't fill your roster with veteran depth, use PTOs to judge your youth and only sign a PTO when the youth falls short

I am willing to bet if you made those rules for the Flames they would be much better in the future.

[Number 39]

Or behave a bit more like the Winnipeg Jets in some ways. They know they will rarely get to sign the big name UFAs so they generally have to build through the draft.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

The only trouble with that is that you don't always find centres by drafting centres. So many players are good enough to excel as centres in junior, but can't handle it in the NHL and have to be moved to the wings.

By the middle of the first round each year, the can't-miss prospects at C have usually been pretty well picked over. Then you have to choose between those players who will probably end up as wingers, and those who have so many warts in their game that they may never stick in the NHL at all. Some years, every centre picked after the top 5 is a crapshoot – and thanks to the lottery, even a team in a full-on rebuild needs some luck to pick in the top 5, as Flames fans know too well.

Very true, but the thing is, it's [nearly] impossible to find them anywhere else.

Spitball figures (where top line C's come from):
60% top 5
30% picks 6-79
9% via trade or UFA (Thornton, Richards/Schenn, Carter, ROR, Tavares...)
1% round picks 80+ or undrafted (Dats, Zetterberg, Andy McDonald, Pavelski* not really a pure C) - nobody recent

There just aren't any Hellebuyck or Giordano or Gaudreau or even Mangiapanes out there at C. And as you say, a 'failed' C may still pan out as a winger or utility player.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Very true, but the thing is, it's [nearly] impossible to find them anywhere else.

Spitball figures (where top line C's come from):
60% top 5
30% picks 6-79
9% via trade or UFA (Thornton, Richards/Schenn, Carter, ROR, Tavares...)
1% round picks 80+ or undrafted (Dats, Zetterberg, Andy McDonald, Pavelski* not really a pure C) - nobody recent

There just aren't any Hellebuyck or Giordano or Gaudreau or even Mangiapanes out there at C. And as you say, a 'failed' C may still pan out as a winger or utility player.

Absolutely. I'm just saying that even with your rule about centres, there is a disturbingly large element of luck involved.

I mean, you know what was the very best thing about the 2012 draft? (It certainly wasn't any of the players.) It was that the #1 overall pick went to the Oilers, who had picked #1OA the previous two years and needed no sympathy for Nail the Fail. Imagine the uproar if the Flames, after all these years, won the lottery and picked first, and it happened in a draft like that one.

The worst thing about the 2012 draft was trying to pick a good prospect at centre. The only centre taken in the top 10 was Galchenyuk, though in hindsight, Forsberg should have been. It was a terrible draft for forwards. If I were a GM faced with a draft like that, I wouldn't take a bad centre just to make up the numbers. I like what you're saying about drafting centres and believe it should always be a high priority, but having a hard and fast rule about it might not help all that much.

[Kipper_3434]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Would love to see a team's future with some hard rules in place (this could never happen).

- Don't sign any outside UFAs over the age of 29, only sign at 29 and less if the term doesn't take them past 34
- Only extend your own pending UFAs for 5 years if they are 29, one year less for every year older, one year more for every year younger
- Move every pending UFA a year in advance unless the terms of an extension are agreed upon
- No trading 1st or 2nd round picks for existing players
- Don't fill your roster with veteran depth, use PTOs to judge your youth and only sign a PTO when the youth falls short

Love your site. Hate this idea. By your logic we shouldn't make any more Hamilton style trades and we shouldn't resign Johnny for any more than 6 years even if it means losing him for nothing or trading him for far less value than he would provide to the team. Furthermore 29 is a weird and pointless number. Most UFA goalies and decent defenceman are over 30 . No more versteeg style signings. Just seems like a horrible and overly general rule based off arbitrary numbers. Hell by your logic we would have traded Giordano (or payed him a significantly higher aav . Terrible idea and a good example of why fans aren't in charge of nhl teams.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Kipper_3434

Hell by your logic we would have traded Giordano (or payed him a significantly higher aav).

This is a very good point. If the team operated by Bingo's proposed rules, they would have lost Giordano before his last contract even started, and he'd have had his Norris Trophy season somewhere else.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Number 39

Or behave a bit more like the Winnipeg Jets in some ways. They know they will rarely get to sign the big name UFAs so they generally have to build through the draft.

Sure, but what have the Jets actually built? I don't find their record that much better than the Flames'. They had that one great season where they won a couple of rounds before getting flattened by an expansion team, and then fell right back into the pack. They did get to sweep the Oilers this year, which is fun, but I think the Oilers would have self-destructed no matter who their opponent was.

We've established that the Flames, though not actually the worst franchise in the league, are somewhere in the bottom quarter in terms of overall success. The Thrashers/Jets are firmly in the bottom third. I'd look higher for a role model.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Bingo

What I find interesting is the grouping of Canadian teams in the bottom half. Without Montreal's run this year they'd all be in the bottom 14 teams.

I wonder how much a rabid fan base plays a role in teams making poor decisions in how to manage assets and their future.

When really the opposite is true ... Canadian fans are likely astute enough to appreciate a rebuild more than a non traditional market.

I read an interesting article on Oilers nation (I know, no goodness . . . ) that highlighted that effectively US born players do not sign as UFAs with Canadian teams. There's only been a handful of signings the last 5 years of US players with Canadian teams. In the early 90s this wasn't so much of a big deal as Americans represented around 10-15% of the league with over 2/3rds of the league being Canadian born players. Problem is now the league has almost 27% US born players with ~44% Canadian born players. In a salary cap world this would put Canadian teams at a structural disadvantage and Calgary in particular has to be concerned going forward as their two best players are American born and might have to overpay to keep them in Flames silks.