The implications of a hot start for the Avalanche

With training camp and preseason games right around the corner, Jared Bednar will soon be brainstorming ways to hit the ground running in time for the regular season.

The Avalanche can all but guarantee a playoff appearance by outmatching the fitness, focus, and most importantly, scoring of their opponents through their first 20 games.

Or can they?

In the past, a strong start to the season almost guaranteed you at least a Stanley Cup playoff appearance. Of the seven best regular-season starts in the pre-salary cap era, five resulted in Stanley Cup championships, one ended in a conference final loss, and one was halted by a first-round exit.

Notable teams in this group include: the 1943-44 Montreal Canadiens who, led by Maurice “Rocket” Richard, only lost five games in the regular season, Wayne Gretzky’s first two Cup-winning teams in ’83-84 (7-1-1 start) and ’84-85 (12-0-3 start), and a stacked ’01-02 Red Wings squad (I won’t go into the details there).

Each of the aforementioned teams was driven by dominant early-season play and/or generational players. Following the 2004-05 Collective Bargaining Agreement and the beginning of the salary cap era, stacked rosters and playoff guarantees became a thing of the past.

Aside from a 12-0-4 start by the Anaheim Ducks in 2006-07 and the Blackhawks’ 24-game anomaly in the 2013 half-season (both resulting in Stanley Cup victories), hot starts haven’t guaranteed much of anything.

No one understands that better than last season’s Buffalo Sabres. After a 17-6-2 start capped off by a ten-game win streak, the Sabres were slated to claim a top playoff seed. However, they deflated with a 13-22-6 record over the next three months and were eliminated from postseason contention on March 4.

Colorado followed a similar path. At the start of December, the Avs boasted a 15-6-5 record and the second-best odds to win the Stanley Cup (7.3%) behind Tampa Bay’s 7.4%. After losing 24 of their next 32 games, the Avs were holding onto their playoff hopes by a thread. While their story had a happier ending, the Avs still had to win eight of their last 11 regular-season games to make the playoffs.

This up-and-down performance is prevalent in today’s NHL. Teams go from Stanley Cup favorites to league laughing stocks faster than you can snap your fingers.

However, the 2019 Stanley Cup Champions reversed that trend. By midseason, the St. Louis Blues had hit rock bottom. They fired head coach Mike Yeo in November, bottomed out at a 0.6% chance to win the Stanley Cup, and were dead last in league standings as of January 2.

A new system, a hot young goalie, and an 11-game winning streak led them to a third-place Central Division finish. Then, they rode their momentum into the Stanley Cup Finals and the sunset (probably).

All of a sudden, the NHL regular season seems meaningless. What changed?

The most common explanation stems from the implementation of the salary cap. Put simply, with less money to spend franchises can’t build and sustain super teams.

The Montreal Canadiens, for example, won 24 Cups in their illustrious history because they had inherent advantages that kept them with perpetually stacked rosters. Conversely, the St. Louis Blues hoisted their first-ever Stanley Cup this past season.

Given, Montreal is an Original Six team while the Blues only came into existence in 1967. But even during the Blues’ 50-year drought, the Canadiens won eleven Cups. The league looked to add a “competitive balance” to the NHL landscape, as Commissioner Gary Bettman put it. So far, it’s worked.

Since 2013, at least five teams that did not make the playoffs in the previous season have enjoyed postseason berths. That number has continued to trend up, as shown in Figure 1 above.

Last year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs featured five new teams, while also providing a tournament more similar to March Madness than to a previous NHL postseason. For the first time in history, the top seeds in both the West and the East were eliminated in the first round. The Flames were extinguished by an Avalanche, while the Blue Jackets marched past the Lightning in a clean sweep.

The Lightning was no slouch of a top seed either. A 128-point season driven by an NHL record-tying 62 regular-season wins made the Atlantic Division champs the clear Cup favorites when the regular season concluded. Come April, Tampa Bay had a 16.2% chance to take home the Stanley Cup, while the next best odds belonged to San Jose with a 10.5% chance (Moneypuck.com).

One week later, the Lightning owned an 0-4 record in the playoffs and was booking offseason tee times. This outcome not only shocked the hockey world but also proved that an incredible regular season is just that. A regular season. Once the playoffs begin, all bets are off.

The Lightning’s awe-inspiring rise to glory followed by their shocking postseason exit spawned the argument that perhaps the speed and stamina of the modern NHL can’t be sustained at such a high level for the 100 or so games required to win a Stanley Cup.

In recent years, franchises have targeted young players with elite speed and skill over big, hard-hitting bruisers. The game’s demanding pace could be causing players and teams to burn out once the playoffs roll around.

We’ve even seen this transformation affect starting goaltenders. While puck stoppers used to play the vast majority of their team’s regular-season games, more and more goalies are starting to split their regular-season workload to stay fresh for the playoffs.

Fatigue is even more likely to set in for teams who rely on big minutes from their top players. Clearly, Jared Bednar expected a heavy workload from his top line last season, and the effects showed around playoff time.

In the final ten games of the season, significant injuries to both Gabe Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen kept them from critical play. And in the second-round series against the Sharks, Mikko endured a monster hit from Brent Burns that left him limping through the remaining contests. Similarly, Nathan MacKinnon spent the early portion of his summer recovering from a Game 7 shoulder injury that nearly kept him out of the final game.

The Avalanche are hoping the forward depth they added this offseason will allow them to make a deep playoff run that avoids serious injuries.

But this is the new NHL. A hot start and a deep roster don’t guarantee a playoff appearance. The most important thing for Jared Bednar’s squad is that they join the playoff hunt. From there, anything can happen.