from Justin Bourne of Sportsnet,

Every year after the Stanley Cup gets handed out, it becomes hyper-obvious that GMs around the league haven’t entirely had their eyeballs on their own test paper. When the Los Angeles Kings won the Cup, everyone around the league wanted to get bigger and heavier. Then two Penguins teams won without world-beating defencemen and everyone started chasing speed and skill, which was presumed to be the direction the league was going.

It’s become inevitable – GMs pursue the look of the latest teams that've won...until that style of team doesn’t win for a year or two, and a new direction is proclaimed.

You heard it here first: Speed and skill and size and goaltending and coaching, they all matter. There’s more than one way to build a winner. A variety of styles can get the breaks and get it done in any given year.

None of that will stop what’s coming this off-season, though, where it will be implied there’s yet again a Formula To Win The Cup for GMs around the league to follow.

So what will teams try to emulate from this year’s Stanley Cup Final? Some of the takeaways will be useful, and others useless. Let’s take a look at the two teams that were left standing when it was all said and done, and what GMs should find that's worth taking back to their own clubs.

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