Post-Game Talk: Stolen

[Flowah]

There are different ways to build the winner, but the most common is around 1C and 1D and then you have to give them the supporting cast.

One thing is that a red hot dominant player can take the team on his shoulders and carry the team a long way. This is mostly the goalie.
Boston and LA, Ducks.

When we had a hall of fame roster in 02, bertuzzi almost won the series against us. He was the most dominant player in the league at the time.

NJDs won their cups thanks to Stevens. He was a beast and he terrorised forwards in his zone. I remember McCarty said to hit Stevens was like hitting a brick wall.

I'm not much interested in pre-cap era. It was a different game. Different rules for playing AND assembling a roster.

Post cap, Boston is an example of that and the Ducks, but not LA. LA had a great roster as well. It wasn't just Quick.

How many teams who have that kind of 1C and 1D are sufficiently competitive in your opinion, and which aren't?

Chicago, Pens, Kings, Montreal I guess. Each team has a legitimate 1C and 1D and enough of a supporting roster to be competitive. Caps are up there. Good depth, great 1C, Carlson ain't too shabby, Holtby covers for a lot.

Which about goes in line with there only being ~5 true contenders every season.

 

[HockeyinHD]

Chicago, Pens, Kings, Montreal I guess. Each team has a legitimate 1C and 1D and enough of a supporting roster to be competitive. Caps are up there. Good depth, great 1C, Carlson ain't too shabby, Holtby covers for a lot.

Which about goes in line with there only being ~5 true contenders every season.

There's something here I think I'm going to dig into a little bit.

A fairly common refrain I hear (not from you specifically, but in general) is that the Wings' roster is very pedestrian, and the depth on their team is something that's not particularly important, insofar as it's perceived to be easily replaceable, especially relative to top end (lead forward or lead dman) talent. That is the centerpiece of the 'tank' theology, given that so many of those pieces would need to be relinquished in order to 'tank' effectively.

The point seems to be that the acquisition of a 1C and 1D should be the entry point on any serious attempt at competition, where competition is described as being a top ~4 team in the NHL.

In addition to the ones you mentioned, these teams can be said to have legit 1C's and 1D's with varying degrees of accuracy from total certainty to 'welllll, if you stretch the terms a bit': Anaheim, Buffalo, Carolina, Colorado, Dallas, Florida, Minnesota, Nashville, Rangers, Ottawa, SJ, St. Louis, Tampa, and Winnipeg.

What I'm exploring here is this: maybe the whole 1C and 1D thing is being a bit overblown as a predictor of 'competitive condition', while the importance of a strong down-roster is being undervalued. When there's a fairly plausible list of 9-14 teams who have 1C's and 1D's but who aren't sufficiently competitive, that sounds something of a warning klaxon regarding how one should value that approach.

So, here's a decent way to approach this issue from a relatively rational perspective: what would Detroit look like if they had cloned versions of the 1C's and 1D's of those other clubs? Would they be better than those teams? For instance, if Detroit had cloned versions of Turris and Karlsson, where would Detroit be in the standings relative to Ottawa? Rangers, Wild, et cetera.

It's an interesting mental exercise, albeit a wholly rhetorical one, in that it suggests the difficulties in roster construction in the NHL is something that hasn't been considered carefully enough, or at the very least not from the most accurate perspective.

 

[HockeyinHD]

Do you argue just for the sake of arguing?

A) I'm not sure the asking of a question accurately describes 'arguing.'

B) Is there a series of greater goals to be sought on goofy sports message boards that my question held us all back from achieving?

You can go back half a century or more if you'd like. A #1C and D are vital. Winning without one of them is rare.

Yes. Not my point.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

Even if we disagree about what makes a team elite, we should be able to agree that the Wings don't have that factor right now.

 

[Flowah]

A fairly common refrain I hear (not from you specifically, but in general) is that the Wings' roster is very pedestrian, and the depth on their team is something that's not particularly important, insofar as it's perceived to be easily replaceable, especially relative to top end (lead forward or lead dman) talent. That is the centerpiece of the 'tank' theology, given that so many of those pieces would need to be relinquished in order to 'tank' effectively.

You're not paying attention then. Let me lay it out for you.

1. Elite talent is harder to come by than depth talent.
2. Elite talent is easier to come by earlier in the draft than later in the draft.
3. Elite talent is a necessary but not sufficient component of a contender.

That's it. That's all there is to it. You describe their depth as "easily replaceable." That's the wrong way to put it. The correct way would be to say it is far easier to replace depth talent than it is to replace elite talent.

Elite talent doesn't make its way to UFA and it's almost never traded, especially not for anything less than elite talent the other way. Depth talent makes it to UFA and gets traded all the time. There's far more depth talent up and down the draft than there is elite talent.

So yes, those 3 points are basically axiomatic. I don't see how any honest person in their right mind could disagree. And if you do admit those facts the tank is the best way to shorten the amount of time that you suck.

The Wings have shown they can find great complementary pieces. They have not shown they can draft elite talent from where they've been drafting. It's been over a decade now. They've had numerous bites at the apple and nothing is here and nothing is coming. That's not a slight against the Wing's drafting. It's damn near impossible to find elite talent from where they draft. It's basically all luck. But that does mean they need to change strategies because the current strategy = a cap team that is bottom 5 in the league. How sad is that?

 

[SoupNazi]

We can get back to arguing this in the tank thread.