This piece was originally written by Will Cooper for our 2024 trade deadline recap, as he forecasts what the rest of 2024 and the coming years have in store for us based on this deadline. However, after reading it I’ve decided that this should stand by itself because folks, Will just put pen to paper and came up with perhaps the most comprehensive guide for what NHL GM’s should be doing right now that has ever graced the internet. I’m going to leave it at that because getting a glimpse into Will’s hockey mind makes me think that I don’t deserve to be writing words on the same page as this prodigal son. Enjoy.
2024 Outlook:
In terms of the deadline, teams were on the stingier side this year. Buyers weren’t budging, and because of that, some top guys like Buchnevich, Markstrom, Vatrano, Chychrun weren’t dealt. I think there’s probably a lot of uncertainty right now in the market as the cap is expected to hike. Once it does, it’s the wild west. Some teams will overpay off the bat, and those that wait for the market to settle, like any market, will reap the rewards.
If you look at championship teams over the past decade, its often done with star power on friendly contracts and competitive depth that play to a system that can steamroll as the playoffs go on. So who fits that this year? My money is on the Stars in the west, and Carolina in the east. What am I rooting for? What’s best for hockey, and for legacies. That being a superstar Canadian matchup in Matthews and McDavid. I doubt my wish is granted.
Outlook beyond 2024:
For the most part, the dominant 2010 teams are trending towards mediocrity and the basement. Pittsburgh, Tampa, Washington, and St. Louis held on for dear life to success. Other juggernauts fell to rebuild before today and are stuck there like Chicago, San Jose, and Anaheim and some have already turned the corner like NYR and LAK. I would have to imagine Boston is staring down the grim reaper in the next couple of years. Low picks and aging players are the catalyst of downward performance in this ecosystem.
GM’s Path to Success:
Teams that are able to stay steadily competitive over different decades only are able to do so from recycling. What is recycling? All it is is keeping a healthy balance sheet. It’s hard to luck into a game breaker outside of the lottery unless your amateur department is performing well above its peers. But if you are a mid market team and are not going to win over stars in the summer, it’s grow home talent and know when to move on. The priority should always be to stockpile assets. Assets exist outside of the cap (picks and prospects) and inside, where cap allocation theory plays its part. In an ideal world, you can recycle the cores of a team and move onto a new guard like Dallas and Carolina are doing now. No #1 overall picks, no multiple 12 million dollar contracts. Assume depth pieces grow on trees and that you will have the assets to either sign, trade or draft them. Your top 6-9, your top 4, and your top goalie should be a combination of age dependent contracts that continuously graduate onto the next level. The Stars and Hurricanes have incredible depth because their most valuable players are a balance of veteran max deals, bridge deals for RFAs, and ELCs. The ELCs will graduate to RFAs, and the RFAs to max deals. Teams get in trouble, like the Blues, like the Sharks, when they start extending veterans after they have already had that post RFA (max) contract. Think Schenn, Krug, Leddy, Couture, Vlasic. When a core piece leaves on his own volition or ages out, think of it as a graduation. The Blues, for example, went out with O’Reilly and Tarasenko and in with Thomas and Kyrou, who have for the most part been cultured by the previous generation. The mistakes came from there being no one to step into Pietrangelo’s shoes, and forcing it by an already graduated player like Krug. Most players’ value goes up through graduation of the post RFA deal and then dips, minus superstars. This is an age dependent form of cap allocation theory (https://medium.com/@tylerkerdman/the-nhl-salary-cap-allocation-theory-f735830a764a). In essence, it means to know when to move on from a player.
The problem with this is that the assets are not stocks. There are synergies between them that can be squeezed for additional value. Certain players will play better in certain systems, or under certain coaching philosophies, and with certain types of players. These, if the data was engineered correctly, could be modeled to allocate more variable driven investments. So player X’s value could be higher than player Y’s on whatever team for a specific role, even if player Y’s general WAR value is higher. I would imagine front offices are exploring how to properly utilize this synergy dependent theory now but the cap allocation theory will undoubtedly always provide a strong foundation for longevity of a team’s competitive window.
For reference on contract value https://theathletic.com/4707263/2023/07/31/nhl-contract-efficiency-rankings-2023/