In the 2015-16 season, right at the end of the Hawks little dynasty they were the 27th heaviest team and the 10th tallest. They were more small and skilled than a big team. That year the three biggest teams were Winnipeg (missed playoffs), Los Angeles (out in 5 games in the first round) and Arizona (missed the playoffs).
james mirtle: 2015-16 NHL teams by height, weight and age - A hockey journalist's blog
Going into last year the Bruins were a top 5 smallest team int he NHL (by size and weight) despite having the biggest player in NHL history on their team. They made it to the finals. St. Louis was a top 5 biggest team in the NHL and won the Cup.
Sizing up the NHL: 2017-18 NHL teams by age, height and...
There is no correlation between team success and the size of its players relative to the NHL player population. Period. Good teams are good teams even if they have a handful of sub-six-foot players. Just like a good team is still good even if they have 4 or 5 players who are 6'4 and up.
A few things are pretty much a certainty though. If you try to build a team of players who are all 6'3 and up, you're almost certainly going to be terrible. Just like a team comprised completely of players 5'11 and under is likely going to suck. It's up to teams to have coaches that can define roles for players of all different ilks and use them to their advantage. Those are the teams that win.
Ok, I agree with you almost entirely, and Tuna definitely has it wrong - Chicago's 2010 team was pretty bug, but by 2015 they were small. And everything else you noted is true...
Except when you say there is no correlation between player size and team success, that is misleading. The game is constantly changing, and teams are always finding new strategies to adapt.
Let's think back to the dead-puck era, there were almost no very small players in the league, especially on defense. After the 2005 lockout, with the cutdown on obstruction, the elimination of the redline, etc. suddenly there was a fundamental shift - the game became more wide-open, back-and-forth, and the value of small, skilled players skyrocketed.
But as always, over time, teams adapt. I don't think LA was particularly trying to build a big team at first - they recognized where the league was and took Hickey fourth overall in 2007. But then the analytic revolution started.
In the mid-90s, the trap became widespread as a strategy for inferior teams to compete with more skilled teams. Now around 2010, the mantra "a good offense is the best defense" took on a whole new meaning, as teams realized that if you can't slow down skilled opponents on the rush and in transition, you can prevent their offense by maintaining offensive zone possession, and the most effective way to do that was by having big forwards who could dominate play down low and along the boards - see: Chicago 2010; but they had a terrifying mix of size and skill up front and could have won in any era. But the point is, corsi was becoming the name of the game.
The counter to that then was having a gigantic defense to combat the opponent's big forwards down low, in addition to having a pretty big forward group of your own. See: LA 2012 and 2014.
2013 Chicago was a bit of a transition between big and skilled, but by 2015 they were ushering in a new era. It was well-recognized throughout the league that you had to win the corsi game to be competitive, but Chicago had figured out that size isn't the only way to do so. If the opponent's defense is too big and slow, you can play keep-away, passing and stick handling around the offensive zone. Of course the Sedins were already doing this in Vancouver 2011, but they didn't have the depth of skill to win with it.
And then Pittsburgh took the next step and was the first team to master activating the defense in the offensive zone to further consolidate control of OZ possession, and their speed and skill made a mockery of a big, slower San Jose team.
Point is, having a big team or small team is never a fool-proof strategy either way. But you can't say it has no bearing on team success. Depending on where the league is going and what other teams are doing, a team can find ways to take advantage of their size or lack thereof.