The Puck Stops Here
Chicago Blackhawks Are Not An Elite Team
by PuckStopsHere on 05/28/10 at 01:59 PM ET
Comments (14)
With the Stanley Cup finals upon us, it is time to look at the two finalists. It is sad that neither team is a historically elite team that belongs in an argument about the best hockey teams in history. It takes away from the Stanley Cup finals prestige. Here is my finals prediction. I pick Chicago as the most likely winner, but they fall short as an elite team.
I argue that it is necessary, but not sufficient, for an elite team to have several (three or more) players on Hall of Fame career tracks and an elite goalie (who may be one of the hall of Fame track players), who is among the top five or so goalies in hockey. It is also necessary that this group of players play well as a team (hence the necessary but not sufficient condition). Any of the best teams in history (historical Stanley Cup winners) satisfy these conditions.
It is easiest to look at the group of players that make up the team to determine if they are a potentially elite team, than it is to try to predict the level of play of the group of players, so I generally use these conditions to eliminate teams from the group of potentially elite teams. If the team does not have great players, they cannot be an elite team regardless of their “team chemistry” or other intangibles. It doesn’t happen. It has never happened in the past.
I have argued many times that expansion and a salary cap have made it nearly impossible to form an elite team. In fact, this Chicago group has a strong foundation and could be able to climb to that level in a few years when their core reaches the mid to late 20s, which will be their career peaks. The problem is that this team will not be kept together that long. Salary cap forces demand that it starts to be dismantled this summer.
How does Chicago measure up to the necessary but not sufficient conditions for eliteness? They fail. The easiest place to show the failure is in their goaltending. Antti Niemi is not one of the best goalies in hockey. Nobody would correctly consider him to be on that level. He is a rookie, so the possibility exists that he might get their someday, but that possibility is not too likely. There are other rookie goalies who had better rookie seasons in Tuukka Rask and Jimmy Howard in the NHL. How likely is the third best rookie goalie in a given season to become one of the best goalies in the game? It is not a probable situation. Even if Niemi overcomes the odds, he is clearly not an elite level goaltender today. Goaltending is important in hockey. No elite goalie means no elite team.
As far as Hall of Fame track players, Chicago may have a couple. They do not have any player who is a future Hall of Famer regardless of what happens in the rest of his career, but they have two that will likely get there with reasonable projection of the rest of their careers. Duncan Keith is the probable Norris Trophy winner this year. He has been the top defenceman in Chicago for the last three years, with increasing ranking throughout the league. It is quite reasonable to expect that he becomes a Hall of Fame defenceman by keeping up his current level of play for a while.
I think Jonathan Toews is also a Hall of Fame track player. He is the top scorer in the playoffs and the leader for MVP. he is a solid two way player who is becoming one of the NHL’s better players. I think it is reasonable to project him to have a Hall of Fame career.
In both Keith and Toews cases, their Hall of Fame track trajectory is not so clear. They are in the young parts of their careers and a lot can happen to derail a career, but I think it is a reasonable projection at this point.
I think the rest of the Chicago roster falls short of Hall of Fame track. Patrick Kane is the third young star on the Blackhawks. He does not have the defensive ability of Toews and it is alarming how his zone starts show an easy role on the team. Nevertheless, Kane did lead the Hawks in scoring. I think his numbers are a bit hollow and a function of his usage, while Toews is more important and plays the tougher minutes. Nevertheless, as Kane is a young player it is more than possible that he might show that I am wrong, but it would require significant defensive improvements or Art Ross level offense to do so and i would bet against either.
Marian Hossa is another player who might get a Hall of Fame argument. He is further into his career than the previous three and has 770 career points (which is not a bad total - but it is far below the totals of many eligible but non-inducted players). Hossa has the interesting storyline of being in his third straight Stanley Cup finals with his third straight team. For a large part, he has not been the player that drove any of those teams to the finals. His two goals so far in the playoffs make him more of a passenger on the Blackhawks ship than the captain. Hossa looks like a player who will have a good career but fall short of the great level needed to get to the Hall of Fame. As he is further into his career than the previous three, it is a much safer projection to make.
One might also wish to argue about Brent Seabrook (who needs to improve to reach the level of Norris Trophy candidate defenceman) or Brian Campbell (who at age 31 is far enough into his career that it looks unlikely) or another player or two who have even longer odds, but they are players who are not likely to wind up in the Hockey Hall of Fame. They are players who fall below the necessary elite level.
Chicago has a good young core. They have two players who I would project to be Hall of Fame track - although it is early enough in their careers that the projections are uncertain. They have another young player who might also be on that track - though I think he likely isn’t. They have some other solid players who are a rung below that level, but help to give them a good core. The main problem is they lack an elite level goalie. Antti Niemi is not one of the best goalies in the NHL. If you had to re-draft the NHL for a Stanley Cup playoff type tournament to being right now, Niemi would not be one of the top goalies picked. He has done nothing in his career to show he is at that level. Chicago lacks an elite goalie. Thus they are not an elite team. There are no elite teams in the league this year and that is detracting from the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs. The playoffs may feature good hockey, but it could be (and should be) better if there were elite teams in the Stanley Cup finals. However, NHL rules have prevented this.
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Comments
Whether or not Niemi ever becomes an elite goalie is not directly relevant. He IS NOT ONE NOW and we are discussing the Blackhawks NOW.
Beyond that, your argument doesn’t address anything. You are showing that some goalies who have strong rookie seasons do not become elite goalies (which is definitely true). That statement says nothing about Niemi whatsoever. You are showing that some goalies who were better rookies than him do not become stars, so what is the logical conclusion about a player with a weaker rookie season like Niemi?
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 05/28/10 at 02:55 PM ET
Whether or not Niemi ever becomes an elite goalie is not directly relevant. He IS NOT ONE NOW and we are discussing the Blackhawks NOW.
Given that Chicago is a reasonably young team, both in terms of players and playoff appearances, they’re rather unlikely to fulfill your “elite team” requirements regardless of optimistic projections. Even if we assume that your definition of “elite team” is interesting and worthy of discussion, it shouldn’t take that many paragraphs to reach a somewhat trivial conclusion (with the predictable salary cap attack).
Posted by Moq from Denmark on 05/28/10 at 03:09 PM ET
Posted by Moq from Denmark on 05/28/10 at 01:09 PM ET
Humbled! lol
Posted by Luongo-is-my-hero on 05/28/10 at 03:57 PM ET
It’s too bad you don’t support your argument with anything concrete to prove your hypothesis. Most blogs are published to incite conversation and debate. You make claims without anything to back them up.
I’ll be interested to see your blog on Philly. Do they have an elite goalie? Michael Leighton has the best Goals Against, best save percentage and the most shutouts.
Posted by Garth on 05/28/10 at 04:00 PM ET
As a Red Wings fan, even I find this article pretty ridiculous. Not only am I unsure what the point of it is, I don’t think you’ve crafted a very convincing argument. The arguments against Chicago, even forgiving the rather the dubious and labored definition of “Elite Team”, is spliced into so many threads as to be meaningless. If you have to parse your parsing, you’ve destroyed your argument. You dismiss Seabrook because he has a bit to go to be a Norris candidate. Chicago is expected to have 2 perennial Norris candidates on their team (same line!?) to be elite? How about Pittsburgh? Their D sucks yet most would consider them an elite team; MAF isn’t anyone’s idea of a top goalie in the league, yet he’s won a Cup and played out of his mind against Detroit last year.
To me, it boils down to this: Chicago is not an elite team now because they’re young and this is their first time (in recent years, post-salary cap) at the big dance. Last year they were upstarts in the WCF. Show up again next year and they can talk.
But to completely pee on your argument - by your definition and the tactics you use to argue, the Detroit Red Wings were basically never an elite team because Ozzie isn’t elite enough. Maybe the year they won with Hasek I guess, but not their last Cup since Hasek sat on the bench most of the playoffs. You have Chicago failing out of the gate because Niemi isn’t elite enough. If only the Wings had Nabakov or Luongo, they might’ve made something of themselves over the past decade.
However, as you mention, w/ the salary cap the elite status will have to be redefined - no more will we see decade long dominance by any club. Parity reigns and I think the elite teams will be those that remain competitive and make the playoffs for long stretches (see: detroit red wings).
Posted by awould on 05/28/10 at 04:02 PM ET
Based on Niemo’s CURRENT body of work in the playoffs leading his team to the Stanley Cup Finals as a rookie and considering he has NEVER lost a playoff round, I would use my own definition to say that he is indeed ELITE. You need a resume an arm long to be RECOGNIZED as elite, but it must start somewhere. How can you honestly say you are only discussing right NOW when you have several paragraphs dedicated to projecting Hall of Fame careers? Do you live in the future so that the future is actually NOW?
YOUR conclusion was that some goatlenders have had a better rookie season and therefore he doesn’t project as an elite goaltender by comparison. My contention is that in such a small sample size we know NOTHING about whether Niemi is elite or not and this just may be his coming out party. By your logic using rookie performance as an indicator of elite status, if Toews was behind Kane as a rookie then it is “Not probable” that Toews would project to be better than Kane. However, someone breaches that logic gap be stating that the lesser rookie is on a HOF path while the more accomplished rookie isn’t.
Terms like it has never happened in the past have no statistical value. First because you provide no evidence and secondly you cannot prove that something will not happen just because it has never happened before unless it breaks some immutable law. But you are just playing with a theory of your own definition.
Posted by hockey1919 from mid-atlantic on 05/28/10 at 04:11 PM ET
this post is ridiculous. the two teams that are in the SCF are not “historically elite” so that’s somehow a bad thing? so what? they’re the best teams RIGHT NOW. what they did in the past, or will do in the future, is irrelevant.
if they decided things based on who is elite, then they’d have been handing the Cup to the Canadiens for the past six decades without bothering to play the playoffs.
Posted by PaulinMiamiBeach on 05/28/10 at 04:54 PM ET
Awould
However, as you mention, w/ the salary cap the elite status will have to be redefined - no more will we see decade long dominance by any club. Parity reigns and I think the elite teams will be those that remain competitive and make the playoffs for long stretches (see: detroit red wings).
Here is the problem. Because of a salary cap we have to accept the best teams available are worse than they have been historically. That is bad for the hockey fan. We no longer get to see great teams.
Garth
I’ll be interested to see your blog on Philly. Do they have an elite goalie? Michael Leighton has the best Goals Against, best save percentage and the most shutouts.
Is your argument that you worship short term statistics so much that you would pick Leighton as one of the best few goalies in hockey despite the fact he has been waived through the league five times (most recently this season)? if so, you need to watch a game and stop relying on stats sheets (the irony is that is what Garth accuses me of - despite making these kinds of ridiculous conclusions himself).
Paul in Miami Beach
if they decided things based on who is elite, then they’d have been handing the Cup to the Canadiens for the past six decades without bothering to play the playoffs.
You clearly made no attempt to understand this definition (or any workable one) of what is an elite team if you think the team that finished 19th in the regular season is elite.
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 05/28/10 at 05:02 PM ET
By your definition the article is about NOW, not about the impact that the salary cap will have on the team in future seasons. If every player goes on to have great career someplace else it won’t matter, what matters is if they are playing great right now. Due to their youth and were they currently fall in the development cycle the Hawks may be as good as they are ever going to get, but even if they do it only once wouldn’t the current team be ELITE? The Blackhawks as quoted by the NHL ” became the fifth team in NHL history to win seven consecutive road games in one playoff year—joining some pretty elite company.” If they are great this season then they are an elite team, but not a dynasty. I think you are confusing an elite team with a dynasty. Or you are NOT talking about the team as they are constituted NOW and your previous answer was off base.
Any discussion about how a team is playing NOW is reliant on short term statistics, since past performance is no gauranteee of future performance. However, you chose to use a single rookie season to determine if a player is worthy of elite status or not. So stats that are short term and prove your point are valid, but others are not. Or do you have your own definition of what we are allowed to use as short term and current or not?
Posted by hockey1919 from mid-atlantic on 05/28/10 at 05:49 PM ET
hockey1919, Considering that I don’t think this year’s Blackhawks would beat last year’s Penguins, the Red Wings from two years ago, or even 2006-07’s Ducks, I don’t consider them an elite team.
I don’t think the best team in the NHL in any given year is necessarily an historically “elite” team. I don’t fully agree with TPSH’s assessment of what constitutes an “elite” team, but I agree that this year’s Hawks are not there.
Niemi may be doing well this year, but he’s not one of the league’s top five goalies. If he later goes on to be considered an “elite” goalie, then great for him, I would even consider this year’s Blackhawk teams among the historically elite in retrospect if lots of other things went well for them too (Not saying they have to be a dynasty to be considered elite, but I definitely need to see more from this Chicago squad before I crown them among history’s best).
Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 05/28/10 at 06:10 PM ET
The Hawks are a really good team, even if they are not historically elite. I don’t think you can make the case that they are historically elite when they finished 3rd in the league in points in the regular season this year. Most (although not all) historically elite teams, lead the league in points in the regular season. Every year one team leads in points. The historically elite teams are the best of those teams that also go on to win the cup. Of course the best team doesn’t always win due to the simple fact that luck plays a huge role in ice hockey especially in a short series but truly dominant teams are probably a little better then 50-50 to beat the field of 16 in the playoffs.
I don’t think its bad for the hockey fan that there are fewer historically elite teams in the league. Sure they’re memorable, but unless you are a fan of that particular team, the dominance takes a lot of the fun out of it. The truth is the same 700 or so players comprise the NHL no matter how they are divvied up among the 30 teams so the overall level of play of the league is the same regardless of the level of parity. Given that fact I like it better when there is more parity and no dominant team.
Posted by Bossy_Rules on 05/28/10 at 06:12 PM ET
the irony is that is what Garth accuses me of - despite making these kinds of ridiculous conclusions himself
Funny thing is, I watched him stand on his head. I watched all three shutouts he had against the Canadiens. I’ve watched his play in the playoffs.
Can you say the same thing?
I recognize that he hasn’t been challenged as much as, say, Jaro Halak was in the playoffs, but you can’t ignore the fact that he’s played WAY above his pay grade.
Stats support that (admittedly, I haven’t studied his corsi numbers) and watching him play supports that as well.
[iYou clearly made no attempt to understand this definition (or any workable one) of what is an elite team if you think the team that finished 19th in the regular season is elite.
Well there you go. At least now we can understand that you base your definition on the regular season. That just about says it all, doesn’t it?
Posted by Garth on 05/29/10 at 03:17 PM ET
At least now we can understand that you base your definition on the regular season. That just about says it all, doesn’t it?
No. I base my opinions on all the hockey I have seen from the player. Only an idiot would throw away years of Leighton’s career (his first NHL game was in 2002) to pick the few months (or possibly i am being too nice to suggest months - maybe past couple weeks of playoffs) that possibly support their argument. Leighton has done nothing to show is an NHL regular until the last half of this season. He is definitely not one of the top five goalies in the NHL.
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 05/29/10 at 03:36 PM ET
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How likely is it for the best rookie goaltender to become an elite goaltender? Andrew Raycroft would suggest that your rookie season is not an accurate indicator of career success. Mason may also be in the same category, so it is a false assumption that Niemi will not become elite because Rask and Howard may have been better this season. Jim Carey is further proof that you may be the best goaltender in the league your rookie season and still not amount to much.
Posted by hockey1919 from mid-atlantic on 05/28/10 at 02:47 PM ET