NHL
Take a look at the standings and the Central Division is the Winnipeg Jets’ to lose. Zoom in on the deadline and Colorado and Dallas have all the momentum.
But who’s best built to win the Stanley Cup?
The Jets’ grasp of the No. 1 spot — not only in the division but the league — is built on a record-setting start to the season, Connor Hellebuyck’s goaltending, the league’s top power play and middle-six depth that has overpowered opponents while Kyle Connor, Mark Scheifele and Gabriel Vilardi help the top line run hot.
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The Avalanche have shipped out Mikko Rantanen but added Martin Necas, Brock Nelson and Charlie Coyle to a group that already includes the division’s best center in Nathan MacKinnon and defenseman in Cale Makar. The Stars won the second Rantanen sweepstakes, bolstering a lineup that already included Jason Robertson, Wyatt Johnston, Matt Duchene and Roope Hintz — plus Miro Heiskanen and Tyler Seguin, hurt now but with hopes for the playoffs.
There’s powerful history here, too. The Avalanche dominated the Jets in five games to open last year’s playoffs, leaving Winnipeg to stew in an extra-long offseason that helped ignite the “five to 10 percent better” mantra that’s helped them this year. Dallas beat Colorado in Round 2 but didn’t have enough left to stop Edmonton from winning the Western Conference.
So who’s best built to win this year?
Let’s sort through the Central Division powerhouse teams using The Athletic’s Stanley Cup contender checklist. It’s a tool originally put together by Dom Luszczyszyn that evaluates recent Cup-winning rosters, studies them position by position and says, “This is how much better than everybody else you need to be to win the Cup.” This year’s version incorporates every Cup champion from Florida last season through Boston in 2011.
Not every Cup winner is identical. Florida’s strengths were different than Vegas’ before it or Colorado’s before that.
Here are the 10 categories we’re looking for:
Now that everyone’s deadline shopping is done, who checks off the most of these key Cup categories?
The Jets are the top team in the division, so we’ll use Winnipeg as a reminder of how to read these charts.
Hellebuyck is on pace for his second straight Vezina Trophy-winning season. As you might expect, the best goaltender on the planet grades out as exceptional — even when compared to starting goalies on the last decade’s Stanley Cup champions. Note that we’re taking an analytical approach. You may have your own views of “clutch” or hold Hellebuyck’s Round 1 against Colorado against him. This model does no such thing.
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Notice that there are columns of checkmarks. The first one (labeled “This Year”) is meant to show how each player has performed until this point in the season. The second one (labeled “Projection”) uses a player’s performance over the past three seasons to predict where he’ll grade out by season’s end.
Whereas Hellebuyck, Josh Morrissey, Nikolaj Ehlers and Dylan Samberg get gold checkmarks in both columns, some other Jets’ ratings change. Scheifele’s performance to date shows a grey checkmark — good enough for a Cup winner but below the average in our sample. By season’s end, it falls below the standard entirely.
This happens because the model gives weight to the most recent seasons of Scheifele’s career. They drag him down — largely because of poor defensive impacts in recent years. The same is true of Connor, who has been so good this season that he’s been better than elite wingers from our Cup-winning sample but whose historical defensive impact drags him down to “below average” for his spot. Vladislav Namestnikov, Neal Pionk and Cole Perfetti all experience some of the same decline — not surprising if you understand the sheer volume of Jets players having the best statistical seasons of their careers to date.
So, how does Winnipeg stack up?
This is an exceptionally good hockey team, led by the best goaltender in the world but bolstered by Morrissey — the second-best defenseman in the division — and a group of middle-six forwards who are better than those on most Cup-winning teams. Samberg’s breakout season as a minute-eating, shutdown defenseman shines brightly, while the Jets also get solid results from Pionk and Dylan DeMelo.
The Jets’ biggest weaknesses are Connor and Scheifele — if their poor history of defensive results derails the great start to their seasons — and Namestnikov, who just doesn’t live up to the requirement for Cup-winning teams to have two elite centers. It makes sense that Winnipeg tried as hard as it did to get Brock Nelson.
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Finally, when considering the hits and misses of our Stanley Cup checklist, keep two things in mind:
1. Players aren’t being compared to league average; they’re being compared to Stanley Cup champions
2. The Game Score Value Added model we’re using gives more weight to primary points (goals and first assists) than anything, but also includes impacts on expected goals, penalty differential and small adjustments for quality of competition. Underlying numbers matter, too
Dallas projects to have more better-than-Cup-winning players on its roster than either Winnipeg or Colorado — and that’s with or without Miro Heiskanen and Tyler Seguin. That reflects an astonishing amount of high-end depth.
Jake Oettinger gives up ground to Hellebuyck but is still viewed as an elite goaltender. Robertson combines elite offense with strong enough defensive metrics to grade out as better than the average Cup-winning top-line winger. At 23 years old, Thomas Harley is having a spectacular season. Roope Hintz drives play while generating more than enough offense to outrank Adam Lowry. Esa Lindell contributes little offense but is so tough to get chances against — at five-on-five or with Dallas short-handed — that he grades out similarly to Samberg.
If the Stars do get to add Heiskanen and Seguin in any combination, they’re almost comically overpowered.
But what of Rantanen?
If the current playoff seeds hold, Rantanen would be at the heart of the Stars/Avalanche series. He’s on pace for his third straight 100-point season despite a forgettable 13-game stint in Carolina. The last time he fell short of that mark, he won the Cup with Colorado — who almost certainly wouldn’t have traded him directly to Dallas if it had the choice.
Rantanen grades out in the lower end for Cup winners, but still in the range. That seems low for a consistent 100-point player; if he stays as productive in Dallas as he’s been to kick things off, then the Stars have an X-factor on top of the biggest group of top-end talent in the West.
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The Stars also have more players who miss the mark completely than Colorado or Winnipeg. Johnston falls below the cut for elite first-line center, Mikael Granlund could use a smaller role, and Cody Ceci grades out so poorly defensively that he’s an outright liability.
Interestingly, neither Dallas’ nor Winnipeg’s top line was in the top half of the NHL in terms of goal differential or expected goal differential when Harman Dayal dug into the topic last month.
Colorado did — and that’s where we’ll start our look.
The Avalanche have retooled down the middle, adding Nelson and Coyle — in addition to Necas being a perfect fit on the wing — while Mackenzie Blackwood has been excellent since arriving from San Jose.
It would make sense if there was some amount of real-world challenge to the chemistry of an Avalanche team that’s undergone this much upheaval. We’re not factoring that in here, though, nor does it appear that Colorado is having that kind of trouble. The Avalanche are 7-2-1 in their last 10 games played, surpassed on that front only by Dallas and Florida, who have won eight games each.
The bigger problem appears to be that Colorado’s secondary elite players don’t match up to those of Dallas or Winnipeg. Nelson, Artturi Lehkonen, Valeri Nichushkin, Jonathan Drouin and Ross Colton all meet or exceed the Cup-contending mark — as a group, they’re quite strong — while falling short of the Stars’ and Jets’ versions of the same. Devon Toews gets great marks playing alongside Makar, giving the Avalanche four total players who are better than average for their position even when compared to Cup winners, but the drop-off after Toews is steep. Ryan Lindgren and Josh Manson are tough to play against in their own ways but don’t measure up to the Cup-winning standard.
Real-world impacts matter. Last year, Colorado was able to run rampant with its speed against Winnipeg in a way that didn’t work against Dallas. In both cases, the Avalanche would have had the superior top-end talent.
Great players give teams more opportunities to have magical moments. So who has the most great players?
This chart goes through the checklist one category at a time and lists the best player at that position, whether he plays for Winnipeg, Dallas or Colorado.
This is a Stars-heavy table. Seguin probably won’t be able to achieve his elite form right out of the gate if he returns. Even without him, Dallas gets an edge from Robertson, Duchene, Hintz, Harley and Lindell that’s tough to match. If top-end talent wins out, then it’s MacKinnon and Makar for Colorado or Hellebuyck for Winnipeg — all three of whom could be considered the best player at their position in the world.
Here are the top teams sorted by how many gold checkmarks they have.
It’s an incredibly competitive division and the Stars seem to have the edge.
(Top photo of Jason Robertson and Josh Morrissey: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)
Murat Ates blends modern hockey analysis with engaging storytelling as a staff writer for The Athletic NHL based in Winnipeg. Murat regularly appears on Winnipeg Sports Talk and CJOB 680 in Winnipeg and on podcasts throughout Canada and the United States. Follow Murat on Twitter @WPGMurat
