ultra63
Registered User
- Feb 27, 2008
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A common opinion
"Stanley Cup Prospects, Part 3: The Contenders"
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/stanley-cup-prospects-part-3-the-contenders/
"No. 1 — Tampa Bay Lightning
...
It’s certainly not a hard case to make. The Lightning are young, they have two franchise players in their prime in Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman, and on top of that they’ve got an entire other line made up of young players who probably haven’t even reached their peak yet in the Triplets.8 Their goaltending is good with Ben Bishop, and might get better (and cheaper) if 21-year-old Andrei Vasilevskiy recovers from a blood clot to regain his status as the best goaltending prospect in the world. They’re smartly managed and well coached. And, oh yeah, they already came within two games of winning the Stanley Cup last season.
So instead of defending a ranking that few will disagree with, I’ll defend the odds that I suspect some might. With all of that going for them, how is it possible that the Lightning don’t even crack 50 percent? Are they really more likely than not to come up empty over the next five years?
History tells us that just might be the case. For every Blackhawks or Penguins championship that you look back on as inevitable, there’s a team like the 2011 Canucks or 2006 Senators — dominant, well-constructed teams that just never managed to get their hands on the big prize. I’m really not sure you could justify ranking any team higher than 50 percent in a parity-driven cap league like the NHL. The gap between sure thing and also-ran is just too small.
But the Lightning may be even more vulnerable than they seem on the surface. The elephant in the room is the Stamkos extension, which as of today still isn’t done. If he were to leave via trade — or even worse, as a free agent who results in no compensation for Tampa Bay — it would lower the Lightning’s odds significantly.
Even beyond Stamkos, there’s a looming cap crunch on the horizon. Hedman needs a new deal after next season, and the Triplets will be due big raises soon. Switching from Bishop to Vasilevskiy could help mitigate that, but Steve Yzerman will have his work cut out to keep this team together.
Of course, keeping an elite roster intact is an awfully nice problem to have. And assuming Stamkos and Hedman stay on board, it’s hard to imagine the Lightning dropping all the way out of contention. Even in the very worst case, they should be well positioned to rebuild quickly.
But that’s for tomorrow. Today, the Lightning have done just about everything right, and that translates into being just shy of a coin flip to take home a Stanley Cup.
It may not be much, but it’s the best shot in the league.
Odds of a Cup in five years: 45 percent"
"Stanley Cup Prospects, Part 3: The Contenders"
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/stanley-cup-prospects-part-3-the-contenders/
"No. 1 — Tampa Bay Lightning
...
It’s certainly not a hard case to make. The Lightning are young, they have two franchise players in their prime in Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman, and on top of that they’ve got an entire other line made up of young players who probably haven’t even reached their peak yet in the Triplets.8 Their goaltending is good with Ben Bishop, and might get better (and cheaper) if 21-year-old Andrei Vasilevskiy recovers from a blood clot to regain his status as the best goaltending prospect in the world. They’re smartly managed and well coached. And, oh yeah, they already came within two games of winning the Stanley Cup last season.
So instead of defending a ranking that few will disagree with, I’ll defend the odds that I suspect some might. With all of that going for them, how is it possible that the Lightning don’t even crack 50 percent? Are they really more likely than not to come up empty over the next five years?
History tells us that just might be the case. For every Blackhawks or Penguins championship that you look back on as inevitable, there’s a team like the 2011 Canucks or 2006 Senators — dominant, well-constructed teams that just never managed to get their hands on the big prize. I’m really not sure you could justify ranking any team higher than 50 percent in a parity-driven cap league like the NHL. The gap between sure thing and also-ran is just too small.
But the Lightning may be even more vulnerable than they seem on the surface. The elephant in the room is the Stamkos extension, which as of today still isn’t done. If he were to leave via trade — or even worse, as a free agent who results in no compensation for Tampa Bay — it would lower the Lightning’s odds significantly.
Even beyond Stamkos, there’s a looming cap crunch on the horizon. Hedman needs a new deal after next season, and the Triplets will be due big raises soon. Switching from Bishop to Vasilevskiy could help mitigate that, but Steve Yzerman will have his work cut out to keep this team together.
Of course, keeping an elite roster intact is an awfully nice problem to have. And assuming Stamkos and Hedman stay on board, it’s hard to imagine the Lightning dropping all the way out of contention. Even in the very worst case, they should be well positioned to rebuild quickly.
But that’s for tomorrow. Today, the Lightning have done just about everything right, and that translates into being just shy of a coin flip to take home a Stanley Cup.
It may not be much, but it’s the best shot in the league.
Odds of a Cup in five years: 45 percent"
