from Travis Yost of TSN,

It’s borne out of necessity as teams have realized the talent spread at the NHL level is razor thin. While top-end skill will always drive the majority of what happens in the win/loss column, depth players have been given significantly larger and more important roles.

The other important piece of this is, empirically, this stuff matters quite a bit come the postseason. Far too often, top-heavy teams have crashed and burned in the early going when competition improves, while the truly balanced groups – the Chicago Blackhawks under Stan Bowman are one of the best examples - have a better chance of fighting into May and June.

One of the ways you can test depth competency is to draw a line between a team’s non-depth forwards (historically regarded to as the “top six”) and depth forwards (historically regarded to as the “bottom six”). Traditionally, the elite 5-on-5 teams see their non-depth forwards obliterate competition and win about 55 per cent of the shots and goals when they are on the ice. Further, their depth forwards can usually stem the tide - if the bottom six can take about 50 per cent of the shots and goals when they’re on the ice, you’re talking about a 12-man forward group that really has no weakness.

Let’s look at all 30 teams as we near the quarter pole of the regular season. Which teams are top-heavy? And which teams have the requisite depth to not only reach the playoffs, but maybe make a run beyond game 82?

Here’s how each team’s top six and bottom six split (Corsi% at 5-on-5, where forwards are sorted by their average ice-time per game and with at least eight games logged):

read on