Teams will still have to be skilled and resilient to win it all. But size and physicality are again back in the equation.
Alex Pietrangelo, all 6-foot-3 of him, hoisted the Stanley Cup high above his head. Factoring in his skates and wingspan, he had the trophy about eight feet off the ice. He then passed it to 6-foot-4 veteran Jay Bouwmeester. By the time the celebration finished June 12 at Boston’s TD Garden, five Blues at least 6-foot-4 had touched the chalice, eight guys at least 6-foot-3 and 10 players at least 6-foot-2.
A cross-section of every skater to suit up for St. Louis in the 2019 NHL playoffs reveals 19 of 21 were at least six-foot, and 15 of 21 were at least 200 pounds. The average height and weight of the skater group was 73.7 inches (roughly 6-foot-2) and 206.2 pounds. That’s a big, thick team. Their opponents, the Boston Bruins, were pipsqueaks by comparison. Even with 6-foot-9, 250-pound Zdeno Chara factored in, the Bruins averaged 72.6 inches and 199.2 pounds, with just eight players weighing in at 200 pounds or heavier.
The 2018 Stanley Cup-champion Washington Capitals’ playoff skaters averaged 73.0 inches and 202.9 pounds. The Blues were bigger, but both teams tower over the previous trio of champs. The 2015 Chicago Blackhawks and repeat champion Pittsburgh Penguins of 2016 and 2017 darted around their opponents like waterbugs. The 2015 Hawks skaters averaged 72.8 inches and 195.5 pounds. The 2016 Pens: 72.8 inches and 198.0 pounds. The 2017 Pens: 72.3 inches, including 11 players shorter than six-foot and 198.5 pounds.
Those Penguins teams in particular were known for their blinding speed and skill. The 2018 Capitals straddled the line between big and mean, like Tom Wilson, and slick and talented, like Evgeny Kuznetsov. The 2019 Blues? They obviously had plenty of talent if they won the Stanley Cup, but this team had one 30-goal scorer, one 70-point scorer and no player ranked among the NHL’s top 30 in points. The Blues are the first team to win the Cup without a top-30 scorer in eight years. They committed to playing a heavy, physical game rather than a high-octane game, and we can’t merely blame the champs’ gradual size increase the past few seasons on human evolution, as the change was too quick. It seems more strategic than scientific.
The NHL, forever known as a “copycat league,” spawned a slew of speed-demon teams trying to emulate coach Mike Sullivan’s stretch-pass offense in Pittsburgh a couple years back. The Caps won with a heavier game and, unsurprisingly, the ensuing Cup winner plays even heavier. Does that mean we should expect a shift to more teams building their rosters around behemoths in the years to come? It hardly felt like a coincidence that, just a couple weeks after the 2019 Cup final, child-sized Cole Caufield fell to No. 15 in the NHL draft’s first round despite possessing the raw ability of a top-five pick.
It seemed to sound alarm bells when the all-skill, no-muscle teams, Tampa Bay, Calgary, Toronto and Pittsburgh, got bounced in the first round of the playoffs, combining for a 4-16 record. Part of the problem, of course, is the difference in officiating between the regular season and playoffs. The slashing crackdown, not to mention the shrinking of goalie equipment, helped 2018-19 yield the most goals per game in the NHL since 2005-06. In the 2019 playoffs, the scoring average dropped by almost half a goal per game, a margin too large to be explained by factoring in unlimited overtime. Overall power plays were actually up slightly from the regular season, but the level of physicality was so high that many more calls were missed than made, with the officials “putting the whistles away.”
The NHL competition committee developed several significant rule changes for 2019-20 (see pg. 8) but, if anything, the most significant one involving officiating was designed to reduce penalty calls, not increase them. That means the rough-and-tumble playoff mentality should continue next spring.
There’s no judgment being passed on that style of play here, by the way. The point is merely that, if the playoffs remain a different game than the regular-season game, the brawniest teams should continue reaping the rewards. We should thus expect the St. Louis blueprint to become a trend for a few seasons.