June 18, 2015
Michael Clifford
2015-06-18
I will be opening a thread in the Dobber Forums today around lunchtime as usual on Thursdays. This will be a thread to the readers to ask any fantasy, or non-fantasy, hockey question that pops up. There are still a few questions to get to from last week, and I'll open with those this week. Feel free to come by and post a query or jump in on a conversation.
Speaking of the Forums, check out the thread for Glorybe’s Fantasy Workshop. It’s a thread that includes an opportunity for Dobber readers to get a very cool fantasy logo fully-customized for free. It’s a thank you from Glorybe, and did we mention it’s a fully-customized logo for free?
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Of course, congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks (and their fans) on their third Stanley Cup in the past six seasons. I think the Final plays out a bit differently if Tyler Johnson has two fully functional arms, but Chicago still kept Steven Stamkos very much in check. It was a great run from the start of the playoffs against Nashville through to the very end.
As far as the cap era is concerned, this is a wildly successful franchise that has become the new model. It's easy to say, "oh sure just draft a Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane" but it's so much more than that.
Teams need talent to win, that's nothing new. What the Blackhawks did, though, was really build around their core players. Aside from the two named and Duncan Keith, Chicago has kept adding talent either through trades, free agency, or the Entry Draft. If it's trading for Andrew Ladd several years ago before their first Cup, luring Marian Hossa as a highly-coveted free agent years ago, drafting Brandon Saad or Teuvo Teravainen, or anything else in between, they never stopped adding talent. They had to get rid (or let go) of talent too (names like Ladd, Dustin Byfuglien, Troy Brouwer, Nick Leddy, and Michael Frolik are just a few that come to mind), but an organizational commitment to always re-stocking has seemed staunch. Heck, they turned Dave Bolland into three draft picks six days after he scored a Cup-clinching goal for the team in 2013. Dobber wrote about Chicago's success yesterday (and well before that, too).
That kind of commitment by the organization – send out still useful yet pricey players for younger players or draft picks, and make tough decisions on free agents in order to continue building around cornerstones – is useless without a good coach. Whatever the opinion is on Joel Quenneville, the guy doesn't seem to be getting "tuned out" as is often cited when players and coaches spend a lot of time together. He's getting the most out of all his players seemingly every year, and he got them to peak at the right time of the season (having Patrick Kane return five weeks early from injury helps, too).