How the mighty have fallen: Chicago and LA

[Man Bear Pig]

This is the reality of the salary cap world. Eventually we'll be saying the same thing about Pittsburgh and Washington and any other Cup contenders who price themselves out of having a competitive team

Yup. You pretty much have a 5-7 year window. Even if you keep all your stars around, you have to sacrifice somewhere and that's going to be your teams depth. Combine that with trading picks and prospects over the years and you have no cheap ELC's in the pipeline.

 

[x Tame Impala]

It's "baffling" if you only have a superficial understanding of what the Kings and Hawks have been doing since 2014&2015 respectively. Hawks fans, and I'm sure many Kings fans, are more than willing to give a detailed explanation of what's changed between then and now. There are many things that happened to both of these teams that've put them in their current spot, not much of it is baffling however.

That's the trouble with so many main board threads. People comment on teams/players/GMs/coaches without watching and therefore have little to no real knowledge about what they're talking about.

It's very difficult to win a Cup. Almost everything has to go right. You need a lot of skill and a lot of luck...even then it's not a guarantee. Ask Nashville or Tampa fans if you don't believe me. Toronto fans will probably start finding this out soon as well with their up and coming roster. Nothing is guaranteed.

 

[nbwingsfan]

Hawks have not fallen, what is this nonsense???. - the only problems are coach Q & Bowman
nothing wrong with the team, nothing wrong with the Hawks.

Two first round losses and a missed playoffs , another slow start and an aging core all say otherwise

 

[Empoleon8771]

Both the Hawks and Kings seem better on paper than how they're actually performing, so I think you have to make questions about coaching at that point. Seeing how both of these teams just fired their coaches a dozen games into this year, I think they had the same conclusion. With that being said, both also have aging and expensive cores and the young supporting pieces aren't good enough to compensate for the core declining. I think it's most likely that both toil in mediocrity for quite a few years, with being borderline playoff teams.

The same thing will happen to the Penguins and Washington sooner than later, I think you can argue that you're seeing signs of decline from both of those teams, especially Pittsburgh. It's just the cycle of the NHL.

 

[Saidin]

Tell me this, who wouldn't trade what they went through and what they have now with their team if it ment winning 2/3 cups....

I betcha 99% of the people do that trade.

 

[Phil68]

Penguins are next. Although the pens have been top of the league for much longer period of time then the Hawk and LA

 

[ColbyChaos]

Tell me this, who wouldn't trade what they went through and what they have now with their team if it ment winning 2/3 cups....

I betcha 99% of the people do that trade.

Apparently the Capitals

 

[llamateizer]

Lol, you post this and in two days both coaches are fired

EDIT: just saw that it was posted after LA kings coach was fired

 

[TheBluePenguin]

Tell me this, who wouldn't trade what they went through and what they have now with their team if it ment winning 2/3 cups....

I betcha 99% of the people do that trade.

100% of Blues fans would I would take missing the playoffs 10 years in a row for ONE cup victory.

 

[gtrower]

It's a salary-capped league. How this thread made it past 2 posts is beyond me.

 

[topshelf15]

The eventual happened....

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

Penguins are next. Although the pens have been top of the league for much longer period of time then the Hawk and LA

Pens will be the last of the old guard to fall. They're at 12 consecutive playoff appearances and counting, and Crosby/Malkin are still 31/32. Yzerman's Red Wings didn't even win their first cup until he was 31.

 

[Bertuzzzi44]

With Powerhouses Chicago & LA crumbling, will Pittsburgh be next?

IMO this is there last year for a run at the cup and then they should retool, trade some Vets including Kessel and maybe turn the corner in a couple of years like San Jose did or feel the pain that Chicago & LA are.

 

[BringTheReign]

Pens will be the last of the old guard to fall. They're at 12 consecutive playoff appearances and counting, and Crosby/Malkin are still 31/32. Yzerman's Red Wings didn't even win their first cup until he was 31.

Yep. Kane, Keith, Kopitar, and Doughty are all stars, but Crosby/Malkin is just a dumb combo of generational/near-generational players to be able to ice together for the last decade and the next half of one.

 

[Peggy]

The salary cap is the worst thing to happen to the league. You have to win Cups before core players get their big pay day. Once they do, there's no room to continue supporting them through free agency and trades.

Even if Chicago wanted to blow it up, they can't trade any of their top players because other teams can't fit them under the cap. So now Chicago basically has to wait until Kane and Toews contracts are up to do a proper rebuild.

Tell that to pitsburgh and Boston

Nothing wrong with the salary cap
It's bad management

 

[Peggy]

The ole "oh we won the cup, gotta overpay our entire roster now", saw it happen to my Bruins and same thing with those teams.

Wilson's contract being another prime example.

The Bruins won a cup and contended twice
And are still a Top team in the league
How did that happen to Boston?

 

[Peggy]

Chicago signed bad contracts that they're stuck too now

And LA tried to hold onto something that was regressing
Probably couldve started rebuilding instead of acquiring mediocre vet to support theyre regressing core

 

[ClydeLee]

The Bruins won a cup and contended twice
And are still a Top team in the league
How did that happen to Boston?

Are you deliberately ignoring the obvious here? Yeah Boston won... collapsed from bad decisions to missing the playoffs 2 years and out round 1 another.. then boosted back up to maybe compete.

That's not different than just 15-17 is where the The Hawks could be now and if the Kings turn the year around they're back in the same spot.

 

[BigKing]

While incorrect, I can understand calling the Kings lucky if 2012 was the only win, but 2014 was one of the most insane runs by any Cup winner.

Down 0-3 to San Jose. Down 3-2 to both Anaheim and Chicago. Win Game 7 on the road in each of the first three series. This wasn't the soft-ass NHL of today either and the first two opponents are the Kings biggest rivals: they weren't playing pat-a-cake out there like today.

They are pretty terrible now but the only luck, if any, is just right place/right time for that mix of guys. They burned real bright and then flamed out but that doesn't mean they were a fluke.

Give me that 2007 Ducks team any day of the week even though they didn't do jack shit for another seven years. I'll take those jerks against any of the Crosby-led Pens teams.

As for the Pens, they were able to get a Cup with two immense talents before those talents cashed in on the big contract. Then they were able to still contend within their conference due to the greatness of those players. Cap continues to rise and then those contracts aren't as restrictive while Chicago/LA has to give new deals in the $10MM+ world.

If the Pens only won one Cup with Crosby/Malkin, they would be a total failure of an organization. Having two of the best players in the world is a pretty big advantage; especially during those times when their contracts are not anchors.

 

[ColbyChaos]

The Bruins won a cup and contended twice
And are still a Top team in the league
How did that happen to Boston?

They had two straight abysmal years after losing Boychuk, Seidenbergs game falling off, trading Seguin for Loui, ditching Hamilton for I believe the pick that was used on Senshynn, people are already forgetting that every top team has had bad stretches for seasons and are now pretending they’ve been amazing this entire time

 

[ziggyjoe212]

Pens will be there soon. Sid, Geno, Phil, and Letang are all over 30 at this point. Fortunately for Pens, they're in a far better cap situation than Chicago. Unfortunately for the Pens, we have the worst farm system in the league.

 

[AD1066]

Pens will be the last of the old guard to fall. They're at 12 consecutive playoff appearances and counting, and Crosby/Malkin are still 31/32. Yzerman's Red Wings didn't even win their first cup until he was 31.

Yzerman and Larionov were over 30, but Shanahan, Fedorov, and Lidstrom were all 26-27 if I'm not mistaken.

Contrast that with Malkin and Letang who can hardly play a full season in their early 30s and the Pens could very well have their fall from grace in the next few years.

 

[GordieHowsUrBreath]

The 08-13 Cannucks and the Sharks around that same era were definitely two very overlooked teams when it comes to looking back to that era, especially when the sharks had peak Thornton, Marleau, and Mr. 50 in 07 as their top line openly feasting on teams. Meanwhile there are people here who think the rest of the league was just weak while Chicago and LA were winning just because his own team wasn’t making the dance. Gotta love this site

the sharks in 2016 were just as good as both, unfortunately for them the whole league got faster

timing is everything in life, unfortunately for the sharks it was bad timing unlike the kings and hawks

 

[GordieHowsUrBreath]

Tell me this, who wouldn't trade what they went through and what they have now with their team if it ment winning 2/3 cups....

I betcha 99% of the people do that trade.

with the 1% being pens fans because they haven't stopped being contenders since 2008

even in the years they underachieved they were still a popular pick to go all the way

 

[ColbyChaos]

with the 1% being pens fans because they haven't stopped being contenders since 2008

even in the years they underachieved they were still a popular pick to go all the way

Not really they were distinctly behind the rangers, bruins, in the east and behind the Ducks, Hawks, Kings in the west. They had a bottom tier goalie when the playoffs rolled around, nobodies like dupuis who wouldn’t crack the top 6 of any other team let alone play on the top line like he did in Pit, a coach who is possibly the worst HC to win a cup in the modern era and made that entire team mentally unstable and thrown off easily. Pit had no chance in any of the previous finals with Bylsma and playoff fleury.

the sharks in 2016 were just as good as both, unfortunately for them the whole league got faster

timing is everything in life, unfortunately for the sharks it was bad timing unlike the kings and hawks

Holy revisionist history just cut the crap just because Pit was not a real contender during the years other teams were winning doesn’t mean the league was weaker since they were just participation award winners. How on earth do you go about these mental gymnastics every post you make? The league didn’t magically get better from top to bottom in a mere 3 years there will always be about 7 teams that could go deep a few hopefuls and then a good 7 teams that need to get their act together. If Pit continues playing awful and a different team wins again will you go back to saying the league is worse and that 2016 and 17 was the peak of league competitiveness