I spent some time this summer building a spreadsheet of all the Cup winners and finalists post-2005 lockout. A few things stand out.
Re: Defense.
It has only happened twice where a Cup-winning team had a 20+ point defenseman - John Carlson this year, and Duncan Keith in 2015. Losing teams, interestingly, have also only had two 20+ point D in a single post-season. Brent Burns in 2016 and Chris Pronger all the way back in 2006 for the Oilers. The Oilers are also the only team to play in a Stanley Cup Final and be led in scoring by a defenseman.
Consistently, you see teams do not rely on the blue line to generate offense. These teams all have some of the best defensemen in the game, and they will get their points, but they aren't the straw stirring the drink. The 2nd highest scoring D is usually not even close to the #1 in terms of points.
What you do need from your defensemen are guys who can play minutes. Every team except the 2006 Hurricanes had at least three 20+ minute a night defensemen, and eight teams have had four.
The most ridiculous defense to win a championship in the modern age is Anaheim in 2007, where Beauchimen and Pronger were both over 30 minutes a game, and Niedermayer was at 29:51. Three 30 minute defensemen. That's so stupid it barely merits attempting to replicate it, but that's what everyone hopes for when they pile the money into the blue line. It never works out that way. Old man Sean O'Donnel, Kent Huskins and someone named Joe DiPenta rounded things out.
Only three teams have won Stanley Cups without at least one guy averaging 25+ a night - 2006 Hurricanes *led in ice time by Rod Brind'Amour - only team to win with a forward getting the most minutes*, 2009 Penguins (Gonchar) and the 2017 Penguins (Dumoulin, with Letang out for the year). One hot take generated from all this research, Crosby and Malkin make up for a lot of other shortcomings.
Ultimately, no matter how many great defensemen you have, you're only ever going to have two of them on the ice at a time. Whereas you'll have four forwards on the ice whenever you need a goal. It doesn't matter if you have Josi/Ekholm/Subban - you're not taking a forward off to get an extra D out there.
Forwards spend more time closer to the net. The closer to the net you are, the more likely you are to score. The Stanley Cup playoffs are no longer a place where you can get a 1-0 lead and lock it down for 58 minutes. You have to be able to trade goals with teams, and you have a better chance of doing that when you invest in high skill forwards.
Of course, none of this matters if you don't have a goalie. Only four teams have emerged victorious when their goaltender's GAA is higher than the opponent's.
-Pittsburgh 2009 - MAF 2.61 vs Osgood 2.01. (Osgood the year before was insane - 1.55 GAA, and Fleury threw up 1.97 himself)
-2010 Chicago - Niemi 2.63 vs Leighton 2.45 *sample size, and vomit*
-2014 LA Kings - Quick 2.58 vs Lundqvist 2.14
-2015 Chicago - Crawford 2.31 vs Bishop 2.18 - There's a good argument to be made that Tampa actually wins this series if Bishop doesn't get hurt.
If your goalie has a GAA under 2, you generally win - the only times you don't is if the other guy's GAA is also under 2, and it's always better. Which makes sense.
If Mike Smith were three or four years younger, I'd place the Flames as a dark horse cup contender. As it stands, I'd say he's got to play 50 games or less and avoid any significant injuries to his lower body for them to have a chance at a deep playoff run. That, or one of the kids needs to discover their inner Matt Murray. Oh, and the coach can't be an easily-duped fool.
This should be a really fun team this year.
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