For a brief moment, the traditional booing that usually welcomes National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman’s appearance to present the Stanley Cup, ebbed away, replaced by a few cheers. Those who’d heard what he said would, fairly, find little about it to dislike. “You have a dynasty,” Bettman told the crowd at the United Center in Chicago.
The term is controversial. What constitutes a dynasty, anyway? Chicago’s third Stanley Cup in six seasons – 2010, 2013, 2015 – is certainly impressive. So, too, were their additional two conference final appearances in 2009 and 2014. They are, arguably, the best team assembled in the post-lockout, hard salary cap era. Better than Los Angeles, winners of two cups since the lockout. Better than Pittsburgh, the team stacked with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. But a dynasty?
Over at FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver is perhaps more persuasive on the dynasty label. Tracking championships in the NHL, NBA, MLB and NFL for the past 20 years, he lays out the argument that, prior to the 2004-05 lockout season, it was easiest to build a dynasty – or, at least, repeat as winners – in the NHL. “From 1971 to 1990, for instance, 45% of Stanley Cup winners had also won the championship in the previous season, and 75% had won a Stanley Cup within the previous three years.” Fast forward to the present day, and the last team to win back-to-back Cups were the 1997 and 1998 Detroit Red Wings.
Perhaps we can at least argue, then, that what the Blackhawks have achieved is impressive.
So how did they do it? Without reducing it too much – there are a number of factors (as well as some good luck) involved – one could argue it was simply a question of depth, both literal and figurative.
After disposing of Nashville in six games, and Minnesota in four, Chicago’s first real test of the playoffs came against conference-leading Anaheim – a big, fast, high-powered offensive team. The Blackhawks played catch up most of the series, although there was never much distance between them. Still, two of their wins came in overtime – one in triple OT, and the other in double OT. The teams exchanged wins, back and forth until Game 7, when, as Cam Cole put it, “the Blackhawks had better players, and more of them.”
Such was the case in the Cup final, too, where names like Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane were largely missing from the score sheet through five games, replaced instead by ones like Teravainen, Vermette and Shaw. Tampa Bay had a similar thing going on, with the name Paquette featuring more prominently than anyone probably expected, and Stamkos appearing far fewer times than assumed – or than was needed, ultimately. Early on in the series, it appeared the Lightning could win this battle of lesser stars, as they took a two-games-to-one series lead on 9 June. It wasn’t so.
When it counted – Game 6, at home, with the Cup on its way to the rink – Kane stickhandled, Toews forechecked and won face-offs, Brad Richards made plays, Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook hemmed the action in the Lightning zone, Corey Crawford made the saves when it counted. In other words, the same thing happened as had happened before. The Blackhawks had better players, and more of them. And they seemed unstoppable.
I say this not just because the Blackhawks had endured a grueling and physical seven-game series against the big Ducks, but because the Lightning laid down an equally savage beating. The Lightning out-hit Chicago 247 to 157 through six games, including a whopping 56 hits in Monday night’s tilt. While shot totals for each team were almost identical (168 for Chicago versus 161 for Tampa Bay), and they were fairly evenly matched in takeaways (43 and 39, respectively), two key stats could arguably have been the difference for the Blackhawks: blocked shots and face-off wins.
On the former, Chicago really shone in the back half of the series, particularly in the final three games. In all, the Blackhawks blocked 103 shots to Tampa’s 88, but a full 66 of those for Chicago came in Games 4, 5 and 6.
When it came to the the face-off circle, it wasn’t even a contest. Aside from Game 1, where Tampa managed 30 face-off wins to Chicago’s 27, the Blackhawks were utterly dominant. They racked up 217 wins to Tampa’s 143 – that is, virtually the same as the hit totals, only with the teams inverted.
If we’re willing to extrapolate, we could take two things from that juxtaposition: First, that it’s difficult to get control of the play when you can’t win the puck; and second, that Chicago is/was a team capable of getting beat up, and still win the most important, albeit smaller, battles. They might owe that to a deep field and better centers. They might also owe it to mental and emotional depth. That is to say, on the biggest of stages with emotions running high, there is a lot to be said for the capacity to calm down and focus on a small point on the ice – then dig deep and win.
It’s a common refrain that the Lightning are very similar to the Blackhawks, just a bit younger and less battle-worn. That might be true. Twelve months from now, we’ll know, anyway. They have some work to do. It’s not easy to build a dynasty.
