Can a Stanley Cup winner be distilled into a repeatable recipe?
It’s a question I ask every year after the NHL trade deadline passes as we reassess the league’s power structure based on which players changed teams. Is there a set list of ingredients a contending team can seek out and sprinkle into one pot every season to ensure a deep playoff run?
Last season, I laid out what I believed was a usable championship recipe by studying the previous 10 Stanley Cup winners. The recipe consisted of seven characteristics that were most common among the champions. It wasn’t as simple as just being good at everything. For instance, there wasn’t a strong correlation at all between having a good power play and winning the Cup.
Using the same parameters, which NHL roster has just the right mix of championship material this season?
So far in the series, we’ve examined team traits tied to tangible on-ice outcomes: Our champion profile includes at least one elite scorer, an elite goaltender, an above-average penalty kill and so on. Today, we venture into the world of the intangible.
Technically, a Stanley Cup ring is as tangible as it gets. But its impact isn’t necessarily something you can literalize on the ice. How impactful is it, emotionally, to open the Stanley Cup playoffs with players on your team who already have rings? Does it really matter to have guys who have been there before?
Stanley Cup ingredient #5: Stanley Cup rings
Let’s examine each of the past 10 Stanley Cup champions and how many of their players already had rings at the beginning of the postseason in those respective years. In the case of repeat champs, the ring counts are astronomical, but that still tells us something. A team full of champions knows what it takes to become champions again.
| Season | Champion | Stanley Cup rings |
| 2012-13 | Chicago | 9 |
| 2013-14 | Los Angeles | 16 |
| 2014-15 | Chicago | 16 |
| 2015-16 | Pittsburgh | 6 |
| 2016-17 | Pittsburgh | 18 |
| 2017-18 | Washington | 1 |
| 2018-19 | St. Louis | 1 |
| 2019-20 | Tampa Bay | 1 |
| 2020-21 | Tampa Bay | 18 |
| 2021-22 | Colorado | 2 |
The takeaway here isn’t what I expected. What jumps out to me aren’t the Hawks, Kings, Penguins and (2020-21) Lightning teams who were loaded with Cup-winning experience. I’m more intrigued by 2017-18 Capitals, 2018-19 Blues, 2019-20 Lightning and 2021-22 Avalanche.
On one hand, four of the past five championship teams had two or fewer Cup rings among their player personnel. That might imply that the experience factor is overrated. On the other hand: every Cup winner in the past 10 years has had at least one player who had been all the way before. For instance, no one other than Brooks Orpik on the 2018 Capitals had even played in a final, let alone won the Stanley Cup. In each of the recent cases, it has been a depth piece rather than a star player bringing the Cup pedigree, from Oskar Sundqvist in St. Louis to Patrick Maroon in Tampa to Darren Helm and Andre Burakovsky in Colorado.
It still seems to matter to have even just one Cup-winning one voice to steady a room during clutch situations. Case in point: the last team to win the Stanley Cup despite having no players with Cup rings entering the playoffs was the 1988-89 Calgary Flames. To go 32 seasons without that happening is astonishing – and suggests the ring factor isn’t a coincidence.
Stanley Cup correlation: Strong (but only required in small doses)
Based on the understanding that the ring correlation is less about having many previous winners on your team and more about having at least one previous winner, I’ll pull a 180 on my original plan, which was to rank teams by most rings.
You just need one, according to the data. In that case: which 2022-23 NHL teams have zero rings among their current rosters?
2022-23 NHL teams without a Stanley Cup-winning player
Buffalo Sabres
Columbus Blue Jackets
Edmonton Oilers
New York Islanders
Philadelphia Flyers
Winnipeg Jets
That’s a short list. It’s no surprise to see rebuilders like Columbus and Philadelphia on it. You’re not likely to have many winners on your team at this point in your trajectory. Even the Sabres, just beginning their rise, aren’t at the buyer phase where they start adding Cup-winning veterans just yet. But the Jets, Islanders and especially the Oilers have reason for concern. Edmonton wants to improve on last season’s Western Conference Final run but will attempt to do so with no rings on its roster. Last year, it had a Conn Smythe Trophy winner in Duncan Keith as an emotional lifeline in the room.
It’s tempting to call the ring factor a fluke. And yet…the next team to win a Cup without any bling will be the first to do so since 1989. Godspeed.
Previous Stanley Cup Ingredients entries: Team Weight, Top-10 Scorer(s). Top-10 Goalie, Shot Attempt Share, Penalty Killing Efficiency
Next up: Trade Deadline Acquisitions
